Exploring the Palestinian side of my family
This post is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend
Frank Rettenberg who left this world in December 2023.
I will always remember him fondly.
“I’ve got a big surprise for you and can’t wait to share it with you when you return. It’s an amazing gift for both you and me. Can’t tell you more.”
Continue readingI’ve been thinking for quite a while that I should write about my trip to Jerusalem but the dark cloud that has descended on the world made everything else feel trivial and dampened my desire to write (other than frantic, futile emails to Biden and my senators and reps in the US Congress). Almost three months later the cloud is only getting darker with no prospect of better days in that part of the world; the news is unbearable. But perhaps making an effort to write is some minor form of resistance.
Continue readingThe brothers were both of medium height with “wheat-coloured” faces and grey-blue eyes. They hailed from Kalkandelen (as the town was known in the Ottoman Empire) and came to Jerusalem to create flour mills and bakeries—and families.
Two unexpected snapshots of sorts, taken in 1905-1906, have added colour and detail to the picture I’ve been building over the years about these two brothers and their families. The younger brother was my great-great-grandfather George Schtakleff; the other, his brother Zacharia.
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*Note: Since its initial publication, this post has been edited at the request of a family member who wishes to remain private.
On a hot summer afternoon in London I made my way to the Thorogoods. A few months earlier, their eldest daughter, Cathie, who lives in Australia, had discovered this blog and my connection to her grandmother’s family—the Gaitanopoulos—and suggested I visit her parents next time I passed through town. I dropped them a line when I was planning a stopover and they invited me over without hesitation.
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Before succumbing to the juggernaut of consumerism, the Christmas season was filled with the smells of baked goods wafting from home ovens. None evokes Christmas more vividly in my mind than the spicy, rich aroma of Yiayia Vitsa’s German Biscuits. (Biscuits in Brit speak, cookies in American lingo.)
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