family history

Rediscovering “The Days of Yore”

How the pandemic gave me time to find my family’s stories

Grocery Stories

Descended from Jewish grocers, groceries have shaped my Jewish life

My Grandmother’s Story, The Story of a Generation

Remembering an individual life that embodied a slice of small town American Jewish life

Searching a Family Tree for Raisins: A Passover Story

Remembering the flavors and folks of seders past.

A Jewish Family Tree: The Genesis of The Elixir of Immortality

I left Stockholm in the fall of 1998 and moved to Oslo, for I had discovered the neighboring land’s greatest ...

From Stanislawow to Beach Music

My parents left the United States in 1973 to retire in Bat Yam, Israel, the country in which they met ...

Seeking Connection

If there is one consistent theme in the ongoing discoveries of my family history it is meaningful coincidence. Some people ...

It’s Not All in a Name

It’s clear from the names of my two pop culture humor books, Cool Jew and Hot Mamalah, that my Jewish background is ...

Revisions for the Paperback

I found my first error in my book in this sentence in the introductory chapter, “Hidden Jew”: “My stepfather [Randy]…knew ...

Genetic Memory: Feeling Jewish

Earlier this summer, I mingled among a group of amateur and professional genealogists at an international Paris conference exploring the ...