Welcome to The Thread

I am working on a book about my history. It is about the stories of my family, the stories that I was never told as a child, or later as an adult. Everything that I am writing is towards healing. Through meditations and traditional research of primary texts, and consulting with organizations and experts in the history of my ancestors, I gained an understanding of my family as human begins and as Jews.

It all began with the election of 2016 where my body elicited a visceral response to what it perceived as an imminent threat of the US turning into a fascist state. There was a threat, but what was this reaction? Did it just relate to the election or was my body responding to an ancestral danger?

The question led me to study the rise of Nazism in Vienna and learn the story of my family’s great escape from Europe that defied all odds, my grandparents and father keeping one step ahead of the horrors of the Nazis and the Holocaust, eventually landing safely in New York. They survived but that survival exacted a price.

I then looked at the ancestors on my maternal line from Newark, NJ, which stretches back to the Russian Empire. Mom’s parents arrived during the Great Migration. They suffered terrible economic hardship along with the constant threat of violence from the pograms.

I made it my mission to learn their history. I feel it is my responsibility to remember what they could not say. Most of these their stories have not been told before, certainly not to me. Along the way I met family members previously unknown, the trauma too great to even speak their names.

This healing work is compounded with the healing of younger and future generations. I learn my place in a long history of people whose stories, many of which ended in tragedy, and I find are my stories too. I see the connections and I feel a sense of belonging. It is a lesson for all of us. There is so much healing to do from world wars, the Holocaust and continued aggression throughout the world, for ourselves as humans and the Earth. We must all look back now in order to collectively heal, otherwise lasting peace will remain elusive. The trauma remains locked away in all of us impacting our personal growth, our relationships and the community.

The work on the book continues, and the journey of discovery never ends. I ask you to join me now.