“If I Stay, There’ll Be a Jew”

Part One: From Pogrom to Sag Harbor

What follows is the story of one of my four sets of great-grandparents: Nathan and Julia Meyersohn. I am fortunate to have unusually clear knowledge of their lives because their story was preserved through conversations with their children: my grandmother Esther, my great-aunt Annie, and my great-uncle Oscar, who was especially determined that I remember it.

The particulars belong to my family, but the larger story belongs to many American Jews whose parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or great-great-grandparents fled the recurring pogroms of the Russian Empire between 1881 and 1921. Those waves of violence reshaped Jewish life for generations. The survivors came to the United States seeking safety and then built communities that became their homes.

I am sharing this not only to preserve my family’s history, but because it is part of Jewish American history—and therefore part of American history.

This story did not come to me all at once.

I first heard pieces of it as a very young child, in the background of adult conversations. I remember telling my mother that I liked listening to grown-up talk because it was more interesting. That instinct goes back to when I was three, four, or five years old.

At home, my bedroom shared a wall with the living room. When my parents had friends and family over, I would lie in bed listening through that wall. When we visited relatives, I listened while my parents’ generation and my grandparents’ generation talked.

I was quiet, but I was paying attention.

Through those conversations, I learned things long before I fully understood them. I learned that some members of the family escaped Russia and some did not. I learned that letters were exchanged with relatives who remained behind until World War II.

Later, I learned that those who had not escaped did not survive the Holocaust.

The story solidified when I was twenty-two, during the final year of my great-uncle Oscar’s life. He was relentless about telling me these stories. Fanatical, really. He wanted to make certain that I had them.

I am profoundly grateful that he did.

Rabbi Nathan Meyersohn was........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)