Tag Archives: Yom Kippur

It’s My Blogiversary! Time to Reflect

Posted on by
11

It was two years ago tomorrow that I posted my first blog post.  It is also the 120th anniversary of my grandmother Gussie Brotman Goldschlager’s birth tomorrow.  And tonight is the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and a long fast day for those who observe.  That’s a lot to process in one day!

It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing the blog for two years (although I really started doing genealogy about two years before that).  In some ways it feels much longer because it has become such a big part of my daily life—-doing the research, thinking about it, pulling my notes together, writing up the posts, editing them, adding photos and documents, responding to comments and questions, and reading the blogs of so many other wonderful people.  The blog has provided me with so many more benefits than I had imagined back in September 2013 when my cousin Judy got me started by setting up the template on WordPress.  Not only has it helped me organize my thoughts and record my research, it has made me focus on not just collecting names and dates on a family tree but on the larger questions: who were these people and what were their lives like? Where did they live, and what were those places like? What historical and economic conditions affected their lives? What legacy did they pass down to their descendants, and how has that affected the person I am today?

The blog also has been a magnet that has allowed others to find me.  Every time I get a comment from someone who just happened to find the blog while searching for their family history, I am amazed by what the internet can do. Imagine if my cousin Wolfgang had not found my blog?  I would not know even half of what I now know about the Seligmann family.

jeff gussie amy 1955 abt

My grandmother was born 120 years ago, and she died just over forty years ago.  She was the only grandparent I knew very well, and I loved her very much.  She had a hard and sad childhood, which scarred her in many ways for life, but with her grandchildren she was loving and funny and affectionate.  We probably brought out the best in her.  As I continue to write my novel about her life and that of my grandfather, I hope I am doing her justice and honoring her memory while also capturing the sad underside to her life.

Amy Gussie and Isadore

And as for Yom Kippur, it’s a day for me to contemplate the year gone by and the mistakes I’ve made along the way.  Although I try my best to respect and honor all my relatives, living and dead, when writing the blog, I always worry that someone will be offended or upset by something I have written.  If so, please accept my apologies.

Also, I hope I have expressed my appreciation to all those who have helped me with my research, and I hesitate to make a list for fear of forgetting someone who helped me months ago and whose name might slip through my ever-worsening memory (getting older does really stink).  But let me try to remember as best I can and thank some of those who have provided me with so much research support in the past year:

my wondeful cousins Lotte Furst, Wolfgang Seligmann, Bob Cohn, Steven Seligman, Suzanne and Stephen Michel, Pete Scott, Phyllis Rosner, and Angelika Oppenheimer,  all of whom have provided me with photographs, stories, and insights into our extended family in the past year (as well as all those who helped the year before);

my amazing contacts in Germany who helped me find and understand documents and other resources: Dorothee Lottman-Kaeseler, Matthias Steinke, Helmut Schmahl, Beate Goetz, Gerd Braun, as well as Ralph Baer here in the US;

my DNA tutors, Julie Mulroy, Svetlana Hensmann, and Leah Larkin;  the many people in the Tracing the Tribe and the German Genealogy groups on Facebook, and the members of the GerSig listserv on JewishGen. Also, thank you to my friend Rene Reich-Grafe for answering my endless questions about Germany, its history, culture, and geography.

To all of you, if I have not expressed my gratitude before sufficiently, I apologize.  You’ve really made this journey so much more meaningful and so much more interesting.

Finally, to my family, friends, fellow bloggers, and other readers, thank you for being there.  I would do what I am doing even if no one was paying attention, but it is so much better knowing that others are interested in these stories about people who really were strangers to us all.

For all of you who are observing Yom Kippur, may it be an easy fast and a meaningful and thoughtful day.

 

 

I Am Still Here

Posted on by
12

 

I haven’t disappeared.  As I said in my last post, it’s a hectic time of year, and I have been busy with non-blog-related matters.  Like spending time with these two, the sweetest little boys you will ever meet (and I am not biased):

Sepia Remy and Nate kissing

 

And with these three:

Three cats

 

 

And with my two September birthday girls (back in the 1980s):

Rebecca and Maddy

 

And then there’s the holidays.  Lots of eating and catching up with friends, less contemplation and introspection than expected.  But that’s okay.  Yom Kippur is next week.  There’s still time.

But in between all those activities, I have been hard at work researching my great-grandfather Isidore Schoenthal and his family.  I’ve found an incredible amount of information in a fairly short time (though much of the groundwork had been done much earlier).  Some of that is due to the fact that others had already researched some of the family lines; some is due to the new databases that have become available since I first started doing family history research.  Today I even found online some digitized German records of the births and deaths of some of the Schoenthals.

So I am hoping to start being able to pull together my notes and my thoughts and start blogging about the Schoenthals within the next week.  From what I’ve already learned, I think they will prove to be an interesting group to write about and, I hope, to read about.

Be back soon.

Yom Kippur

Posted on by
4

First, I want to thank everyone who reached out to me in response to my post yesterday about Luna.  Every comment both on the blog and elsewhere made me feel a little better, just knowing that others understood what I was feeling.  Thank you.

Second, I once again need to take a short break from my family history research.  Starting at sunset tonight through sunset (and then some) tomorrow, I will be observing Yom Kippur.  My children and my grandsons will be here, and I look forward to the time with them all.

I find that Yom Kippur can be the most meaningful holiday of the year for me.  I try to spend time reflecting on the year that has gone by—thinking of all the things I’ve done, all the good times and the bad times. My goals are to think about all the people in my life and wish for them a year of good health and happiness.  To think about how I could have been a better person in the past year.  And to think about what I hope for the coming year—for myself and my family and friends and from myself as well.   Sometimes the day is not as meaningful—I am distracted, bored, hungry, grouchy.  Fasting is never fun, but sometimes it seems painless.  Who knows what this year will be like.

So I haven’t made a lot of progress this week on the family research, but I will return with more on my Wild West ancestors, the Seligmans, after the holiday.  See you then.

To all who observe, I wish you a meaningful and easy fast.

Change of Plans

Posted on by
6
Shofar (by Alphonse Lévy) Caption says: "...

Shofar (by Alphonse Lévy) Caption says: “To a good year” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was going to post about Gau-Algesheim this morning, but have decided to wait until after Rosh Hashanah.  It’s an important post (to me, at least), and with so many family and friends celebrating the holiday, I thought it might get lost in the shuffle.  So I will wait until Sunday to post it.

 

In the meantime, I also will be busy celebrating the holiday and so will take a short break from writing and researching so that I can focus on the holiday and my family.

 

For everyone out there, whether you celebrate this holiday or not, let’s hope for and work for a year of peace everywhere—within our families, our communities, our countries, and our world.  Shana tova!

 

Related articles