The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century Author: David Laskin | Language: English | ISBN:
B00C1N978K | Format: PDF
The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century Description
The author of the The Children’s Blizzard delivers an epic work of twentieth century history through the riveting story of one extraordinary Jewish family In tracing the roots of this family—his own family—Laskin captures the epic sweep of the twentieth century. A modern-day scribe, Laskin honors the traditions, the lives, and the choices of his ancestors: revolutionaries and entrepreneurs, scholars and farmers, tycoons and truck drivers.
The Family is a deeply personal, dramatic, and emotional account of people caught in a cataclysmic time in world history.
A century and a half ago, a Torah scribe and his wife raised six children in a yeshivatown at the western fringe of the Russian empire. Bound by their customs and ancient faith, the pious couple expected their sons and daughter to carry family traditions into future generations. But the social and political crises of our time decreed otherwise.
The torrent of history took the scribe’s family down three very different roads. One branch immigrated to America and founded the fabulously successful Maidenform Bra Company; another went to Palestine as pioneers and participated in the contentious birth of the state of Israel; the third branch remained in Europe and suffered the onslaught of the Nazi occupation.
With cinematic power and beauty, bestselling author David Laskin brings to life the upheavals of the twentieth century through the story of one family, three continents, two world wars, and the rise and fall of nations.
- File Size: 15663 KB
- Print Length: 401 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 067002547X
- Publisher: Viking Adult (October 15, 2013)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00C1N978K
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,995 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #1
in Books > History > Europe > Belarus - #23
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National - #30
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > World > 20th Century
- #1
in Books > History > Europe > Belarus - #23
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National - #30
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > World > 20th Century
How does a family survive and grow in the midst of bad times? If members are struck down by cudgels, fire, poison gas, and guns can the family tree continue to blossom? Author David Laskin, in his new book, "The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century", takes a family - his own extended one - from the shtetels of what is today's Belarus to the United States and Israel. But "three" journeys? That third "journey" ended in the killing pits at Ponar and the ghetto at Vilna and a fire pit at Klooga in Estonia.
David Laskin's family on his mother's side began in the shtetel of Rakov and the yeshiva center of Volozhin, both in current-day Belarus. Their family name was Kagan or Kaganovich, which is a derivative of the priestly name of "Cohen". Many of the men were scholars and torah scribes and the women either kept the house or made the coin. Hard times in then-Russia - pogroms and government suppression and economic failures - made the idea of emigrating to "der Goldene Medina" - the United States - a very attractive one. Several members of the family went to New York City in the early 1900's. Hard work and luck turned their lives into increasingly prosperous ones. By the 1920's one branch of the US family had found success in the wholesale metals business, which the other branch became "Maidenform", an early creator of bras and girdles. Remember the old ads, "I dreamed I rode a merry-go-round in my Maidenform bra" or some-such? Well, they were the creation of Itel Kagan Rosenthal who was a fiery socialist back in Rakov til she became a sterling capitalist here in the US.
The family's story begins in 1835 on the western edge of Russia in the village of Volozhin, where Shimon Dov HaKohen, author David Laskin’s great-great grandfather, was born. Shimon Dov, a Torah scribe, and his wife Beyle raised six children, living a quiet life in their pious community. Like parents everywhere, Shimon Dov and Beyle hoped their offspring would stay nearby and lead the same quiet lives they had chosen.
THE FAMILY follows several generations of that Russian Jewish family through decades of births, marriages and deaths. Each person born in each generation has his own ideas, hopes and dreams. And each must work and search to find the life to which he believes he wants. Rather than trace each generation, this review will trace the three main paths.
One popular path some descendants took was entrepreneurship. Those folks settled in America and, through much hard work and sacrifice, succeeded in business beyond their wildest dreams. The author’s aunt Itel ran a very successful dressmaking business. When the flapper look became popular, she branched out into the bra business and enjoyed great success as the founder of Maidenform Bra Company. Three of Itel's brothers --- Harry, Sam and Hyman --- settled in the Lower East Side of New York, where they operated a wholesale business that also thrived.
A second path led to the Holy Land for family members who became Zionist pioneers. The first to settle in the Holy Land was Chaim in 1924. He joined a moshav, a cooperative farming village that gave him more autonomy than he would have living on a kibbutz. Life was hard, working the arid land and dealing with complicated problems of who owned the Land. Sonia, a cousin of Chaim's, left home in 1932 with four friends.
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