Tel Aviv Diary: Karen Alkalay-Gut

An extended family gathering – I learn that many of my relatives of the next generation have been exploring their family roots. My niece, who is related to me only by marriage, goes back easily a few generations on her mother’s side, and on her Italian father’s side can trace relatives back to the sixteenth century. A similarly related nephew has found records and records of his relatives in Poland. I am jealous for a moment, thinking of the whole in my family’s history created by the Holocaust, but then stop. The greatest hole is Amos, my other nephew’s loss – less than two years ago – and it is palpable in his children’s eyes, in his widow’s determination, in his mother’s eternal sadness. The lack I feel of a family history is a theoretical one, the lack of Amos is real.