>>>>>So were many embassy children across the world, which doesn't earn them the national tag of the host country.
>>>>>
>>>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
>>>>
>>>>I think confusion about whether Ayn Rand is russian or not comes from the fact that in slavik countries Jews were never considered to be "russians", "ukrainians", "serbian",whatever. The anti-semitism and to some extend any anti-small-ethnic group sentiments are so deeply rooted in the slavic world that they labeled people by "nationality." And Jews who may have lived in Russia for many generations still belonged to nationality "Jews".
>>>
>>>And not just in Slavic countries. My mother was born in Germany, as were many generations before her. But they were never considered Germans.
>>>
>>>Tamar
>>
>>I suppose anti-semitism is very international <g>
>
>Well, I can't be accused of that - first off, made friends with semitic people of all kinds (both jewish and arabic), worked in a jewish company, had jewish bosses a few times and didn't have any kind of problems with them... But that was not the point at all, and I really don't know where you guys pulled that word from.
>
>On the contrary - I was very curious why would Marcia try to sell Ayn Rand as a russian author? And then submitting that wikipedia link - where pretty much any person of arts or science of any kind is proudly assigned proper ancestry, which was mostly unknown to me at the time of their fame. But we got wikipedia now - so, check Marc Bolan, Nina Hagen, Artie Shaw, George Gershwin, Danny Kaye etc, even Abraham Zapruder. In all these cases, plus many others I don't really remember, these were mentioned as authors of the countries where they made careers, not of those where they were born (except where it's the same country, of course). As an aside: nobody mentions Dave Matthews as an african-american author, even though he is one by origin.
>
>I still don't have no clue why would she do this, and why would she think it would matter to Mike whether Ayn Rand was russian or not. The only plausible explanation, at least in my head, is that it was first a slip, and then something of serbian-like stubornness and sticking to the original statement no matter what.
>
>(would have responded to her directly, but I lost that bit of a thread and, well, your subthread is just as good for me)

Marcia didn't try to sell you Ayn Rand as a russian author. Go back and check the thread. Mike Bean brought up the word "russian". All that Marcia said - in reply to your quesiton - is that Ayn Rand was born and educated in Russia. Which is true.

George Gershwin, btw, was born in the USA. The others you mentioned I don't quite know.