Share Your Journey

The journey of the Jewish diaspora has had an immense impact on the development of modern world politics, economics and culture. Many modern Jews can trace their roots back to distant lands far from their current home. These journeys permeate generations, passed down through treasured stories, objects and photographs. Where did your family's journey begin? What is your diaspora story? Share your journey below and include a family photograph, home video or image of a special heirloom that represents your own Story of the Jews.

Hilda Daniel

New York City, New York, USA

Pictured is my mother (front row) with her net ball team in Singapore. I believe this was taken at the British Army medical base where she worked. I ...

Al Bergstein

Port Townsend, WA

Orphaned in Valkevish Poland, my paternal great grandmother, Rachel Cohen, was shipped to the US, on a boat with her best friend who died en route in her arms. Rachel ...

Dov Samuel

Los Angeles, CA, United States

My parents emigrated from Mumbai, India and settled in Toronto, Canada in 1965. We're Bene Israel Jews. Our story is very old going back almost 2000 years when it's said ...

Anne Rosenberg

Twinsburg, OH, United States

My 3rd great grandfather Harris Elias (Tzvi Akiva ben Eliyahu) came to NYC from Poland in 1859 and remained in the Lower East Side until his murder at age 65 ...

Pepi Strahl

Placitas, NM, United States

My parents were both Holocaust survivors who met in Linz, Austria a few days after my dad was liberated from Mauthausen and serving on the medical staff of a hospital ...

louis schutz

Skokie, IL

I asked my mother about what I knew were own frequent nightmares. I knew of them because I often heard her crying and screaming at night, through the walls ...

Jane Axelrod

New York, NY, United States

M father's parents came from Austria and Hungary at the turn of the 20th century. They met and married in New York. They lived a good life ...

Jonathan Meckler

Cleveland, OH, United States

My paternal grandfather's parents were from Stepan and Kyiv. My maternal grandfather's parents were from Tetiiv and Plyskiv, two small towns in central Ukraine only about 30 miles apart. My ...

Deanna Glassmann

Huntington, NY, United States

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 ...

Natasha Rabinovich

Easton, CT, United States

Both sides of my family came to the United States from Russia as Refuseniks. However, my grandfather was not granted an exit visa. The picture is of my dad in ...

Melissa Hayes

Kauneonga Lake, NY, United States

I was not born Jewish, although my father, a church-going Mormon like my mother, would often make comments about some Jewish ancestry. My father told me as a child to seek ...

Ellen Lerner

Rochester, NY, United States

I wish I had more of a story. Neither of my parents spoke much about their parents or their own childhoods. My grandparents on both sides came from Russia before ...

Adina Bernstein

Brooklyn, NY, United States

My mother's maternal grandmother, Ida Miller (nee Lowenthal) emigrated from Dobromil, Poland (present day Ukraine) as a young girl with her family. In the picture (left to right) is ...

Thomas Bean

Vashon Island, WA

The Bean (Bun) family fled the shtetl of Ponamuk, Lithuania at the turn of the last century due to escalating violence against Jews in the region. My Great Grandfather Jacob ...

Daniel Perrone

Monroe, CT, United States

My great-grandmother, Chai Meidenberg (nee' Weinbraun), pictured here in Ostrow Mazowiecka, Poland. She is standing over the grave of her father, Zelman Weinbraun. The inscription indicates that he died on ...

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