In Search of My Roots

May 6, 2017 – In Search of My Roots

Some time during the second decade of the 20^th century, a young unmarried woman left her home in the Lithuanian city of Kovno and set out on a journey that would change the course of her life and make my life possible.  That young woman was my maternal grandmother, born Shaynie Shaeffer in the summer of 1889.  The early part of the 20^th century was a tumultuous time in the Russian Empire, as world war threatened and the Russian Revolution brought about the creation of the Soviet Union.  Due to frequent pogroms in the late 1800s and early 1900s, many Jews had already fled and it was particularly dangerous for those that remained.

Although it was difficult to travel during the years leading up to World War I, Shaynie along, with her mother, brother, and sister-in-law, fled Kovno.  Since it was impossible to get to the United States at this time, their journey took them east across Russia and the vast expanses of Siberia.  They eventually found their way to Harbin, China, where they found a community of Jewish refugees.  With no means to continue on to the U.S. or Palestine and World War I now raging, Shaynie would have remained in Harbin indefinitely, had it not been for a personals ad that appeared in a Yiddish-language newspaper.  The ad had been placed by a cousin from Kovno who had emigrated to the United States in 1903 and was living in Atlanta, Georgia.  Like many others, Rabbi Tobias Geffen was trying to locate relatives and reunite families.

Thanks to the efforts of Rabbi Geffen, my grandmother received a ticket to travel by ship across the Pacific from Yokohama, Japan to Seattle, Washington.  Upon arrival in the U.S., she was met by a colleague of Rabbi Geffen and escorted by train to Atlanta, where Rabbi Geffen was a leader of the small Jewish community.  He immediately arranged a match for her with an eligible young Jewish immigrant and thus, Shaynie Shaeffer of Kovno became Jennie Edelstein of Atlanta.  My grandfather, the Rev. Abraham Isaac Edelstein, was a pious and learned man who made his living as a shohet (kosher slaughterer), Torah reader, and shamas of the Orthodox shul.  My mother was the fourth of their six children. 

My maternal grandparents with the first four of their six children.
My mother is the youngest, sitting on her father's lap.

My grandfather, who studied English and became a U.S. citizen, died when I was six years old so I never had a chance to talk to him about where he came from in Europe.  Before his death, my family and I would travel down to Atlanta for Passover every year.  We’d stay in my grandparents’ house, which was torn down many years ago to make room for a sports stadium.  The entire extended family would gather there for the two Seders.  One of my most vivid early childhood memories is being in the kitchen at breakfast time, sitting around the enormous (at least to a child) wooden table, and smelling the butter melting in the frying pan for matzoh brie.

My grandmother, whom my cousins and I called “Bubbe” (Yiddish for grandmother), continued to speak exclusively in Yiddish although she lived in Atlanta for nearly seventy years.  I can hear her now, admonishing my cousins and me to “gey shlofn” (go to sleep) or calling us “vilde khayas” (literally, wild animals) when our play became too boisterous.  When she came from Atlanta to Long Island for her annual visit, my mother would put an LP of Yiddish songs on the record player and my grandmother would sing along to the familiar melodies.  That’s how I learned my favorite lullaby, Rozshinkes mit Mandlen, and the hauntingly beautiful tunes such as Tumbalalaika and Oyfn Pripetchik.  (Note:  You can hear these and many other Yiddish songs on YouTube.)

Imagining my bubbe as a young woman is nearly impossible for me.  From the time I knew her, she was a tiny old woman who didn’t smile much.  She kept her long wispy white hair coiled into a bun, and wore long dresses that ended just above her ankles, thick stockings and sensible black shoes.  Since she refused to wear her false teeth, her face had a peculiar caved-in look and she had to gum all her food. There was always a mystery to her since we couldn’t really communicate.  Over the years, I’ve tried to imagine what her life was like before she fled Kovno.

Like most of the European Jews who managed to leave during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, my grandmother never spoke of the land she’d left behind.  The “old country” was a place of hardship, persecution and death.  It was a place best forgotten.  Shaynie knew she was fortunate to have escaped.  None of my grandparents ever considered returning to the land where earlier generations of the family had lived and died.  And when I was growing up, like many young people, I didn’t think of asking my grandparents about life in the cities, towns and shtetls they’d left behind in Europe.  When I actually became interested in learning more about my roots, it was too late to get the information directly from the source.  As for my parents, who were both born in the U.S., they were just as ignorant as I about our family’s roots. 

As a teenager in the 1960s, I saw the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” which gave me a peek into shetl life.  That formed the basis of my impressions of my ancestors’ lives for many years.  Also, starting in high school, I’ve done a lot of reading about Jewish history, especially the Holocaust.  I’ve also sought out books, films and programs about the pre-Holocaust Jewish community in Kovno but so many gaps in my knowledge remained. When the opportunity arose to take a Jewish heritage tour to the Baltic region, and the itinerary listed Kaunas (the modern name for Kovno) along with Vilnius and Riga, I immediately signed up.  

I knew this study tour would be different from my past travels, which focused on beautiful landscapes and castles and art museums.  This journey would be about the history of Jews in the Baltics, and therefore my own family history.  It would have to deal with the Holocaust, of course, but also with Yiddishkeit, the culture of the Ashkenazic Jews, that began many centuries earlier.  This is a challenge, since most of the physical evidence (synagogues, schools, books, religious objects and entire shtetls) was destroyed and very few members of the pre-war Jewish community remain.  With regard to learning about Yiddishkeit, historian and tour leader Claire Simmons reminded our group that we have to turn to words to try to imagine the lost world of our ancestors.  

Being on this trip with twenty-four others, many of whom also had family ties to Lithuania and Latvia, was a fascinating, thought-provoking, and at times emotionally wrenching experience. I have so much to share about this unique trip that I’ve decided to write separate blog posts for each of the major cities we visited: Vilnius, Kaunas, and Riga.  I’ll also write a blog post for my time in Berlin, which I visited on my own at the conclusion of the study tour.  Please be patient as I work on this over the course of the next week. 

I am so thankful to be home again.  And words don’t suffice to express my gratitude to my grandparents and great-grandparents of blessed memory who struggled, sacrificed and made the journey to the U.S., so that I could be here today.