Overview

Playing Detective with Family Lore is more than one family's saga. The far-ranging origins of the author's family and the course of the progenitors' lives and those of their descendants provide a microcosmic illustration of the macro-level triumphs and tragedies of Jewish life in Eastern Europe and America. From the tiny Radekhiv shtetl to the famous Polish market town Jaroslaw, from the Russian port city Nikolayev - inside of the Pale of Settlement during the 1905 pogroms, to Jassy - rife with unique antisemitic legislation following Romanian independence, this book unwittingly traces a collective history epitomized by one particular family's combined narratives, making it a 'must read' for the 80% of American Jews who trace their ancestry back to Eastern Europe. Playing Detective with Family Lore goes beyond Researching Your Family History Online for Dummies. Offering more than a ringside seat how to mine information online, the author, a seasoned journalist, shares her expertise with budding memoirists. She explores how the skills and the logic of a Sherlock Holmes can be employed to stitch together snippets of information in order to forge a more coherent whole that may confirm, contest, augment, or complicate oral family lore. Not your run-of-the-mill memoir, the structure is a tad unique. Sprinkled at the bottom of the pages, academic footnotes are repurposed to create a new genre: Experiential Reading. The links to historical footage, photos, and short texts make reading this work closer to a virtual museum than a traditional e-book.

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Reviews

""Daniella Weiss Ashkenazy's insightful and engaging book is proof that the study of genealogy can often produce excellent history. Her family's story sheds light on the Jewish immigrant experience, from the transatlantic passage down to postwar suburbanization. A delightful read."" - Prof. Vincent J. Cannato, University of Massachusetts History Department, Scholar of U.S. immigration and author of American Passage ***** ""Playing Detective with Family Lore takes the reader on a fascinating journey of discovery into the world of the author's Jewish immigrant ancestors. Anyone with roots in Eastern Europe will learn not only the types of records that could reveal a family's background, but also the reasons why an individual would leave their home and travel across an ocean to a new land."" - Diana Elder, AG, Professional genealogist and author of the best-seller Research Like A Pro: A Genealogist's Guide ***** ""Weiss Ashkenazy, American-born, but a 50-year citizen of Israel, expertly weaves together the strands of a complex, yet deeply rooted identity. Gil's and Pearl's daughter fulfills her promise, while shining a spotlight on the multiple paths which led her to personal and professional fruition."" - Rabbi Mindy Avra Portnoy, Rabbi emerita, Temple Sinai, Washington, DC ***** ""This book is not just sprinkled with, but rather fully awash in, the fascinating minutiae of an upward mobile immigrant family, with accompanying visuals of numerous old documents (e.g., a certificate of merit from summer camp, old newspaper comic strip, WW2 ration book, mom Pearl standing in front of a biplane, air raid signal poster, and so on). These numerous photos alone are worth the read. ""Second, with a journalistic background, Ashkenazy wasn't going to simply throw any and all slips of paper and other memorabilia into the narrative without checking their veracity, also filling in holes where no documentation was at hand. But in my opinion, the real 'added value' is her explaining the ins and outs (plus pitfalls) of such family sleuthing. Anyone thinking of writing or even researching their family's past will come away with several nuggets of how to do what. ""In short, this is far from being the usual pedestrian, family biography. Definitely worth the read - and fun too!"" - Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig, Former Chair of the Political Studies Dept., and School of Communication, Bar-Ilan University - Israel ***** ""This family's story, or as the author labels it - 'playing detective' with her family's history - is not just a narrative of the author Weiss Ashkenazy's private family over the past century and more. In many respects it is a window to the history of medicine, written from the perspective of the average person... ""Anyone who wants to learn about the history of medicine during this period should read Playing Detective with Family Lore, a narrative written from the perspective of one Jewish immigrant family - where mysteries unfold that not only reveal the story of the author's family. They faithfully reflect the history of medicine."" - Prof. Shifra Shvarts, Ben-Gurion University Faculty of Health Sciences, Deputy General Secretary, International Society for the History of Medicine

Daniella Weiss Ashkenazy has produced a book with three 'faces': a personal memoir of her grandparents' life as immigrants to the U.S.; a detailed 'sociological' look at what assimilation into America entailed in the mid-20th century for their American-born offspring; and a sort of 'how-to' go about doing familial research (less genealogy and more documentary). While the specific family story is interesting in itself, the real contributions here are the last two aspects. First, to paraphrase Stalin's awful aphorism ( One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic ), in this case, one life is a world unto itself that can elucidate the immigrant experience far better than a narrative of a whole people (actually, two for the price of one - both her parents). This book is not just sprinkled with, but rather fully awash in, the fascinating minutiae of an upward mobile immigrant family, with accompanying visuals of numerous old documents (e.g. a certificate of merit from summer camp, old newspaper comic strip, WW2 ration book, mom Pearl standing in front of a biplane, air raid signal poster, and so on). These numerous photos alone are worth the read. Second, with a journalistic background, Ashkenazy wasn't going to simply throw any and all slips of paper and other memorabilia into the narrative without checking their veracity, also filling in holes where no documentation was at hand. But in my opinion, the real 'added value' is her explaining the ins and outs (plus pitfalls) of such family sleuthing. Anyone thinking of writing or even researching their family's past will come away with several nuggets of how to do what. In short, this is far from being the usual pedestrian, family biography. Definitely worth the read-and fun too! Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig Former Chair of Dept. of Political Studies (2004-07), and School of Communication (2014-16) Bar-Ilan University (Israel) *** Playing Detective with Family Lore takes the reader on a fascinating journey of discovery into the world of the author's Jewish immigrant ancestors. Anyone with roots in Eastern Europe will learn not only the types of records that could reveal a family's background, but also the reasons why an individual would leave their home and travel across an ocean to a new land. Diana Elder, AG Professional genealogist and author of the best-seller Research Like A Pro: A Genealogist's Guide *** Combining her outstanding investigative journalistic skills ('playing detective') with her deep emotional connections to the 'lore' of her Jewish family, Daniella Weiss Ashkenazy transmits to her readers a vivid multigenerational story, predicated on love. Begun as a 'promise' at her father Gil's funeral (at which I officiated) it blossomed into a rich compendium of facts and creative narrative, touching all the main themes of American Jewish history, including immigration, anti-Semitism, climbing professional ladders. Rabbi Mindy Avra Portnoy Rabbi emerita, Temple Sinai Washington, DC

Author Information

Daniella (née Weiss) Ashkenazy was born and raised in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area and immigrated to Israel more than 50 years ago (in 1968 in her early twenties). She is a well-published bilingual Israeli freelance journalist. With an undergraduate degree in sociology and a lifetime as a history buff with far-ranging reading tastes, since 1985 Ashkenazy's works-commentary, political analysis, humor and satire columns and major features-have appeared in Hebrew and English in Israel's leading papers and periodicals, from the Jerusalem Post and Israel Scene to Davar, HaOlam HaZeh and Yediot. Her highly stylized features in Hebrew were often quoted on Israeli radio among the 'best reads' of the weekend papers. Parallel to journalism, Ashkenazy freelances as a translator and developmental editor for Israeli academics. As a pen-for-hire, she researched and ghostwrote two books and countless white papers and op-eds for Myths and Facts about the Israeli-Arab conflict. Ashkenazy also served as editor-contributor to a well-received academic volume published in 1994 by Greenwood Press about the IDF's non-military facets and the Challenge of the Dual-Role Military. She lives with her husband Rafi in Kfar Warburg-a rural village south of Tel Aviv, and has three adult children and four grandchildren. More information, including excerpts and reviews, are available on the book website: www.playingdetective.com.

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