Deanna Glassmann

From Life in the Shtetl to a Family and Business Career in New York.

In early 1914 my paternal grandfather left his family and life in the shtetl in what was then Prujany, Russia to see if he could make a better life for himself and his family in New York. His last child, my dad, was born several months later. It wasn’t until seven years later, in 1921, after WWI, that my father, my grandmother and four of my dad’s siblings were able to leave what had then become part of Poland, to join my grandfather in New York. Settling in Brooklyn, NY, my dad entered public school at age 7, not knowing any English. It was the start of a successful life for him in the United States where he graduated from high school, married, had three children and eight grandchildren and became a business owner both in New York and in Paris. An active participant and leader in the Jewish communities in which he lived till the age of 93, he was instrumental is having a Torah that was not longer being used in a synagogue in Brooklyn brought to Israel.