Svetlana (Sveta) Grobman grew up in in Moscow, Russia, in the 1960s-70s. From a very young age, she found herself living in two contradictory worlds: the private world of a Jewish family struggling to live a decent life in a society rife with shortages and Antisemitism; and the public world of an oppressive totalitarian regime.

Despite that, Svetlana was a dreamer who longed to do something significant for her country. Yet as she matured and learned about the persecution of her family and the tragic deaths of her Ukrainian relatives during WWII, she realized that the world around her was built on lies and corruption, and that she needed to be strong just to survive.

Composed of a series of poignant and sometimes humorous stories, The Education of a Traitor not only describes the experience of one Jewish child coming of age at the height of the Cold War, but also helps explain why millions of people chose to leave the Soviet Union when the Iron Curtain finally fell.