Something new under the sun: A family-history update

First, my California brother reminded me that our mother’s Hebrew name was Hadassah, not Esther.  Oops!  Since I’ve been calling myself Léah bat Esther v’Ozer for 50 years or so and can’t bring myself to ditch my old name entirely, I’m now calling myself Léah bat Esther Hadassah v’Ozer. 

Then, our sister reminded me to check a recent e-mail from our Israeli brother that had gotten lost in the Pesach (Passover) preparations, and I was in for quite a surprise!

Our brother told an interesting tale of his first Sephardi (or Mizrachi?) seder (with a family originally from Tripoli, Libya).  But far more interesting was what he had to say about our family’s background.  Since our parents made Aliyah about 10 years after he did, he’d had the privilege—and the responsibility—of being the only one of the four of us to live within commuting distance of them, and had heard a few tales that were certainly news to me. 

Our mother had told him that an ancestor of her American-born father (who had an Ashkenazi last name and was, reportedly, of Austrian origin) was the first gabbai at Mikveh Israel, a Sephardi synagogue in Philadelphia.  That means that he was a Sephardi Jew, probably from Southern Europe. 

There’s more, folks.  My brother also thinks that some ancestors of our father purchased our Ashkenazi last name when they migrated to Austria-Hungary from Turkey. 

I’ve been davening (praying) in Ashkenazi synagogues all my life, and the only nusach (roughly, traditional prayer-wordings and melodies) that I know is Nusach Ashkenaz.  In addition, many, if not most, of the holiday celebrations that we enjoyed as kids were organized by our mother’s mother’s Ukrainian side of the family.  So it’s an understatement to say that I’m pleasantly surprised to learn, at the age of 74, that my family is probably part-Sephardi on both our mother’s and our father’s sides.  Wow! 💖