Acknowledgments
Thanks to all who have played a part in making this book:
And to Allan, Michael, Annette. Joe and Jess.
And to Avi, Danielle, Naomi, and Gabriella.
And to Mark, Gal, Assaf, and Aviv.
For my trusted readers along the way,
Bette Ann Moskowitz, for telling me straight.
Carolyn Sacks, for wanting the stories to be told.
Rabbi Jeffrey Segelman, for urging me to cross the frozen river.
Eleanor Dreyfus, for our walking talks around the brook.
Michelle Judd Mackey, for taking the stories to heart.
To family, near and far, for their contributions, especially,
Norma Perel, for the cover painting, Puesta de Sol en el Este.
Rosa and Julio Scheines, for their insights about family stories.
Claudia Perel, for inspired archival research.
Matias Scheines, Iris Sloin, and Mario Solan for the music.
Rosa Sloin for her poetry.
Thanks to Tobin Simon, Lesley Jones, Ruth Wintner, Stuart Schulhof, Sharyn Protass, Vanesa Berenstein, Michael Akman, Gerardo Scherlis, Gabriela Scherlis, Barry Pearl, for their close readings of the book.
And to Elmer and Adie Judd, Dick and Rhoda Judd, Linda Schulhof, Carol Lazear, Ana Perel, Liliana Perel, Rosita Wachenchauzer, Pablo Jacovkis, Martin Scheines, Damian Scherlis, Rosita Gleizer, Pablo Perel, Daniel Perel, Jorge Gleizer, Mark Levin, Gal Levin, Jean Levin, Susan Levin, for their encouragement. And to all the family in the diaspora, who make the stories their own.
To translators: From the Yiddish, Lazer Misulovin, Silvia Perel Levin, Julius Akman. From the Russian, Robert Whittaker, Zhanna Kushmakova, Anna Royzner.
Thanks to these friends, colleagues, and reviewers, Janice Cimberg, Sylvia Moss, Ann Morgado, Cynthia Ozick, Nora Glickman, Dorothy Rainier, David Schlitt, David Potash, Avi Lichtenstein, Ann Andrejcak, Ellen Bartok, Rita Marlowe, June Hesler, Elizabeth Lambert, Shari Rosensweig-Lipsky, Phyllis Kelly, Karen Kolodny, Linda Hirsch, Trudy Smoke, Sondra Perl, Suzanne Reisman, Elaine Ross, Jonathan Ornstein, Ben Greenberg, Ellie Wymard, Jean Ferguson Carr, Shirley Budhos, Matthew Rosenblum, Kelsey Thayer, Valerie Faeth, Tom Watson, Elissa Wilson.
Thanks to Anna Royzner for disseminating copies of the book to teachers and students in local schools in Novokonstantinov, Ukraine. And to those in Ukraine, who play a part in the story: Anna, Vilodin, Zina, Ivan, Nadia, “Zina of the Borders,” and Alexandr Kozubovsky.
And to those who continue to influence my writing, teaching, and research on narrative: Geoffrey Summerfield, Herschel Portnoy Virginia Woolf, Joan Didion, Eric Auerbach, Abraham Heschel, William Labov, James Britton, Henry Glassie, Boris Cyrulnik, Robert Colodny, Seamus Heaney, Italo Calvino, Saul Friedlander, Sholem Aleichem, John Berger, Grace Paley, Joe Kincheloe.
To my academic home, English Department, Queens College of The City University of New York.
To my brilliant editor, Shirley Steinberg, who always brings worlds together. Thanks to Ian Steinberg for his commitment to this book and to his inspired design, and to Michel Lokhorst, Robert van Gameren, Paul Chambers, and Jolanda Karada at Brill | Sense.
Thanks to Philip Anderson, poet, musician, photographer, educator, spouse, with whom I am always in conversation.