About this book
Not to dream, not to be able, not to be. This is the reality of Jewish life in 20th-century Russia. The Penny is Gone is a lyrical and brutal account of Jewish life under the institutionalized antisemitism of the Soviet Union.
In the middle of an illustrious career at a classified military research institute, Emil is callously dismissed without cause. Insinuation, family ties, and whispers of Israel may have been just what the authorities needed to exercise their intolerance of Russian Jews in a personal, merciless way.
Emil stares down the Kafkaesque labyrinth of the Soviet machine. The Penny is Gone draws the reader in as Emil resolutely persists in his pursuit of justice—because he fights in the name of dignity. In the end, contemplating his battle scars, he at last understands the refrain from his youth: “What is permitted to everyone else is forbidden to the Jew.” And yet, he preserves his human dignity and never surrenders the eternal optimism of the Jews.
In language that is alternately lush and stark, in a story where heartbreak and hope join hands and love of country is unrequited, The Penny Is Gone sheds light on why a million and a half Jews uprooted themselves from the Soviet Union. It is both story and history, and a warning for our day.
Advance Praise and Reviews
“Antisemitism is the politics of the pointing finger. The Penny Is Gone points a finger back and cries ‘j’accuse!'”
—Ruth Wisse, author, The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Language and Culture
“The story of Soviet Jewry is one of the great sagas of modern Jewish history. Yet that tale of suffering and resistance is rarely invoked today. Fortunately, we have this beautiful, heartbreaking memoir to remind us of the dignity and heroism that sustained Soviet Jews and inspired Jews around the world.”
—Yossi Klein Halevi, author and senior fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute.
“An entrepreneur and data scientist, the younger Emil has translated his grandfather’s writings skillfully, preserving their literary (and distinctly Russian) qualities, while producing an eminently readable book despite the barrier between the two languages. What results is a memoir—even if Bezverkhny insists he has not written a memoir but an attempt to unearth ‘the roots of today’s tragedy’—which places readers in the restless mind of a man who did everything right, suffered enormously, and was in the end let down by those who promised him utopia…
“The shadow of a long history of Jewish suffering, a history that would rear its head once again as the Soviets turned their backs on the Jews, was omnipresent. That sense of historical inescapability haunts Bezverkhny, and from it the book draws its title.”
—Tal Fortgang, The Washington Free Beacon, “Some Soviets Were Less Equal Than Others” (April 5, 2026)
“We might’ve never had the privilege of sharing Bezverkhny’s resilience and optimism had it not been for his grandson, Emil Pitkin. The youngest-ever lecturer at Wharton School and a brilliant statistician and entrepreneur—the apple did not fall too far from the tree—Pitkin realized, after Oct. 7, 2023, that his grandfather’s notebooks must not remain the exclusive domain of the family. His translation is lucid and gorgeous; like all master translations from Russian—Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky in particular come to mind—Pitkin’s prose is at once delectably earthy and beautifully aloof, serving up poetic streaks mixed in with unerring worldly analysis and attention to the finest of detail.”
—Liel Leibovitz, Tablet Magazine (June 16, 2026)
