The Past, Present and Future

We all use the past in order to interpret the present. Our current predicaments only make sense to us when put in the context of historical trends. We see present and future situations through the lens of our past deeds.

Recently I’ve begun to delve into my own past… but not just my own past, my families past, and not necessarily the individuals themselves but the trends. I’ve been doing my best to find out when my family is from, tracking down names, to towns and doing my best to put together a picture of where not just I come from but where my family comes from.

Why am I doing this? In some ways its pure nerdy fascination; I like stories, and creating one for myself and for my family is as interesting an intellectual exercise that I can do. In another line of thought we must know our own pasts or we will be doomed to repeat them. However in this case I’m studying historical trend, not individual choice so maybe it’s a little different. I guess the real reason is the more I explore my own very personal Jewish identity I crave some insight into where my family developed its own in the near past.

After a little digging, I found a rough outline. Basically my family is from the meeting point of present day Belarus, Poland and Ukraine. The borders have shifted and the towns’ names have changed but with some degree of reliability I found the sweet spot.

This is important to me personally because when you start to look into where your family is from you can examine the social trends of the day that may have influenced their lives. By social trends primarily what I’m talking about is the schools of Jewish thought that ran though this densely populated region of years in the 17th through 20th century and beyond.

This is amazing when you think about it. Due to the instability of the area, the relentless persecution of Jews and others for centuries and the dilapidation common to communist rule nothing should exist. But thanks to some very dedicated people there is a wealth of translated documents and names lists with town of origin to be dug though. I’m including links to a few sights I found helpful if you’re interested.

Enjoy the long weekend.


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