Conversation with Arthur Kurzweil

Gesher Galicia Today

We are very excited to present to the community this most interesting conversation between the noted author, educator, editor, publisher and award winning genealogist, Arthur Kurzweil with Gesher Galicia President, Steven Turner. Those of you who were able to attend the gala at the IAJGS in Philadelphia know what a privilege it is to listen to Arthur Kurzweil. We discuss Arthur’s new book, The Persistence of Memory which can be purchased here.

Arthur Kurzweil grew up hearing his father's tales of Dobromyl, the small town-a shtetl - in what is now Ukraine, which his father had left behind as a child when his family emigrated to New York in the 1920s. As a young man in the 1970s, Arthur obsessively sought to rediscover this lost world, researching in the New York Public Library and tracking down the shtetl's surviving emigrants. This research led him to write his best-selling book, From Generation to Generation: How to Trace Your Jewish Genealogy and Family History, but his obsession with Dobromyl didn't abate.

We hope you give this podcast a listen and look forward to hearing your questions and comments at [e-mail].

In The Persistence of Memory, Arthur brings us along on his quest to find his father's ancestral home in Dobromyl - a quest that covers physical and spiritual ground. Join him on a frustrating trip to Soviet-held Ukraine in the 1970s to multiple return trips to a free Ukraine in the 21st century, in a quest that brings him to the height of elation and to the depths of despair.