Title: THE SPOON FROM MINKOWITZ:
A Bittersweet Deep Roots Journey to Ancestral Lands
Author: Judith Fein
Photographer: Paul Ross
ISBN: 978-0-9884019-3-8
Publisher: GlobalAdventure.us
Pub. Date: Jan. 5, 2014
Paperback & All E-Formats Pages: 243 Price: $18.95
Publicist: Marlan Warren E-Mail: roadmap.girl at hotmail
Website: http://www.globaladventure.us
Summary :
Author Judith Fein embarks on a
quest to call on ancestors and urges us to do the same in The
Spoon from Minkowitz: A Bittersweet Deep Roots Journey to Ancestral Lands.
===============================================
Interview with
Judith Fein, Author of The Spoon from Minkowitz -
A Bittersweet
Deep Roots Journey to Ancestral Lands:
“Finding roots is the solution for a
rootless life.”
I heard the Eastern European ancestors of many people like me
calling out. “Remember us. Don’t forget us. Our story needs
to be heard. Write our story. Write your story."
—Judith Fein, The Spoon from
Minkowitz
Judith Fein is a travel journalist’s travel journalist. She has
globe-trotted unencumbered by maps and prior research from Mog Mog to Vanuatu.
By her own account, she has swum with Beluga whales, consulted with a Zulu sangoma in South Africa, and eaten porcupine in Vietnam
(“not with relish”). In 2011, when Fein and her photojournalist husband Paul
Ross visited Tunisia during the Arab Spring, the French-speaking American Fein
found herself on the radio, speaking to Tunisians about Democracy. Her popular
book Life Is a Trip: The Transformative Magic of Travel depicts highlights from her decades of
soul-searching adventure, which include a road trip with a Maori tribe on their
way to reunite with their European roots. However, for Fein—whose motto is “I
live to leave” —a big chunk of travel-mystery was still left uncracked: her own
ancestral roots.
Fein’s new book, The Spoon from Minkowitz: A Bittersweet Deep
Roots Journey to Ancestral Lands,
takes us with her on the trip she finally made in 2012 to the shtetl her maternal grandmother left behind in an obscure
Ukrainian village known as Minkowitz.
The Spoon from Minkowitz came out in January 2014, and has
already garnered stellar reviews. Catharine Hamm, Travel Editor of the Los
Angeles Times, found The Spoon from Minkowitz “as tense as a thriller and as
tender as a love story. Judith Fein’s…quest to connect the dots of her
life will have readers laughing, crying and, most of all, cheering her on.”
Bill Tammeus, co-author of They Were Just People: Stories of
Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust
called the book “compelling” in its ability to “move beyond the
borders of Judaism and even beyond Holocaust history to a universal story of
love.”
We had the opportunity to catch Judith
Fein for a moment when she is not in perpetual motion to talk about the deeper
meanings of genealogy as explored in this book.
For those who have not yet read your book, what is
“the spoon from Minkowitz”?
My grandmother was from a Russian village called Minkowitz.
And that, plus five other facts, were all I could ever get out of her about
where she was from and why she left. She spoke mainly Yiddish, so maybe that
was a reason. My mother told me virtually nothing, no matter how much I begged
when I was growing up. So then I meet my husband Paul, and we’re immediately
attracted. But here’s the kicker: when I ask Paul to ask his parents about
their ancestral roots, it turns out his father’s family came from…Minkowitz.
Okay. So the “spoon.” When Paul told his parents we were
getting married, his father offered us the only thing left from his parents’ shtetl in Minkowitz”: a soup spoon they brought with them
to America. I treasured it because it made our ancient connection so
real to me. We made a place of honor for it under the chupa (Jewish
wedding canopy) on a satin pillow.
What impressed me about your search was that it wasn’t a
matter of buying a plane ticket to Minkowitz. You practically “feel your way”
through Russia. The same is true in the stories you told in Life Is a Trip. Would you call your process “right brain”?
First of all, there are no planes to Minkowitz. And yes,
“right brain.” I call it “following the arrows.” It’s about keeping eyes and
ears open. If you trust you will end up in the right place, and if it’s meant
to be, you will get there. One friend says I don’t seem to be traveling as much
as channeling. She’s dubbed me “The Human Travel Channel.”
This book is like Jewish version of Roots, the Alex Haley book that traces his African
American family history. It also reminds me of Safran Foer’s Everything Is
Illuminated, especially when you and
Paul are in that stifling car where the driver refuses to roll down the windows
in blistering heat. If I were a Hollywood producer, how would you pitch The
Spoon from Minkowitz to me?
I’d say it’s a kind of Everything Is Illuminated meets Life Is a Trip.
If there is a link between The Spoon from Minkowitz and Life Is a Trip, what is it?
In Life Is a Trip, I take readers to l4 exotic climes where they
experience new and different ways of dealing with life issues—everything from
love to death to ambition to family tension. In The Spoon from
Minkowitz, I take
readers into the land of their ancestors, and into the depths of their own
souls.
Why is connecting to our ancestors so important?
Finding your roots can be the solution to a rootless life.
In my book, I talk about roots travel, talking to grandma, digging deep into
family roots to find out who you are and where you come from. Ours is a
rare culture that doesn't honor and connect to our ancestors. Everywhere I have
traveled, I've experienced ancestor worship, ancestor ceremonies, ancestor
altars, ancestor honorings. It is time to bring this powerful awareness
to our shores--with humor, heart, and information.
What’s next for Judith Fein?
What’s next for
me is also what’s next for The Spoon from Minkowitz. The critical response to the
book has been wonderful, and I am planning ancestor events and talks in various
cities.
