Asking a Jew whose family came from Eastern Europe where they’re from is more complicated than it sounds. It’s like the joke about the old Jewish woman who wakes up one morning to find her home is now in Poland, and responds, “Thank God, I couldn’t stand those Russian winters any longer.”

My grandmother Gitel came from a shtetl called Probuzhna — once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then Poland, now Ukraine. The borders kept shifting. The winters, presumably, did not improve. And Probuzhna’ s story was no joke: vibrant for centuries within the Kingdom of Galicia, it was ultimately swallowed by WWI’s Eastern Front, and by 1941 its last Jews were taken to........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)