Memoirs of a Jew born in 1937 in Odessa, relating his childhood experiences in the postwar period. Popular antisemitism was rampant in Odessa, and the people in power, from school teachers to local authorities, turned a blind eye to it. Between 1948-53 popular antisemitism gave way to officially-sponsored antisemitic campaigns. Draitser, who had a traditional Jewish upbringing, was taught to be quiet, to maintain a low profile, and never to stress his Jewishness publicly. Contends that all Soviet Jews of his generation received the same upbringing of self-hatred, learned fear (including fear of "gentile" women), and an inferiority complex. In 1974 he emigrated to the USA. Describes, also, his family's evacuation from Odessa in 1941, and how some relatives perished either in German-occupied Minsk or in Ukraine.

"Emil Draitser dreamed of becoming a writer. Born to a working-class Jewish family in the USSR on the eve of World War II, he came of age during the Brezhnev era, often considered the nadir of Soviet culture. Bored with an engineering job, he found refuge in writing, attracting the attention of a Moscow editor who encouraged him to try his hand at satire. He spent the next decade contributing to Crocodile, the major Party-sponsored magazine known for its sharp-tongued essays and caustic cartoons. After he got in trouble for criticizing an important Soviet official, he began weighing the heavy decision of whether to emigrate. In this captivating memoir, Draitser explores what it means to be a satirist in a country lacking freedom of expression. His experience provides a window into the lives of a generation of artists who were allowed to poke fun and make readers laugh, as long as they toed a narrow, state-approved line. In the Jaws of the Crocodile also includes several of Draitser's wry pieces translated into English for the first time." --Amazon.com.