My mother, Estelle, was born Esther Lanch in 1911 and raised in a Jewish household in San Francisco’s Fillmore District. From Odesa, where her mother was raised, to London and the Jewish communities of Montreal, New York, and San Francisco, the family encountered anti-Semitism in mid-Twentieth-Century America. My family’s journey weaves a compelling portrait of identity, reinvention, family legacy, and belonging across generations.
The History
My historical memoir, Suddenly Jewish, begins with the revelation of my maternal lineage. Estelle’s mother, Rose, a strong-willed woman, was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Odesa, Russia. After a family tragedy, Rose left for Toronto and eventually married Jake, a volatile union organizer in Montreal. Their tumultuous marriage, compounded by Jake’s political activism and atheism, drove Rose to fiercely preserve her Jewish traditions in secret.
Despite hardships, including emotional abuse and economic instability, Rose’s strength shone as she raised her daughters with unspoken connections to their heritage. My mother chose not to embrace her Jewish identity from early childhood due to fear and trauma. She never considered herself Jewish. She never believed in doctrine. She only believed in her own strength.
A few years after graduating high school, my mother fell in love with an Irish Catholic man. The transition to another identity, far removed from her own, allowed my mother to set aside her past and let my father raise my brother and me in the Catholic faith. She never told my brother and me that she was Jewish. Not once. Not ever…until…
On the eve of my wedding to a Jewish student, my mother sat on my bed as I was returning to Berkeley for my junior year, and said, “Your Grandma is Jewish. I just thought I’d tell you.” I had spent my life feeling an unexplained pull toward Jewish culture and people. I replied to her that “being Jewish doesn’t skip a generation, that she couldn’t deny that fact. And now, I’m suddenly Jewish.” In a flash, I was someone else.
The Journey
Discovering the complexities and dynamics of identity, family, and resilience through the lens of my mother’s hidden Jewish heritage was a challenging journey. It was my intention to weave historical context into my mother’s memoir to clarify and expand her journey. Sometimes the historical backdrop brings clarity to identity and purpose. Sometimes it is the only available choice.
When my mother told me that my grandmother was Jewish, it was my only available choice – to accept and reshape everything I thought I knew about who I am. Accommodations had to be made for purposes of identity – not faith or belief. Although I had many questions about what it means to have a Jewish identity, in my mind, it did not concern practices and rituals. I was not deterred by the emotional and spiritual changes that would inevitably come into play. I was able to travel seamlessly across decades.
Why Did My Mother Hide Her Identity?
Estelle’s story is ultimately about a mother’s choices and the legacy she left her children. The tension she bore between protecting her family and hiding her truth is a story every parent can relate to, no matter their path in life. The historical narrative of Jewish antisemitism and the social pressures that drove Jewish women to conceal their identity is a significant piece of American Jewish history. Since coming out with Suddenly Jewish, I’ve heard many stories about hidden rituals and kept secrets. It is ubiquitous in the human condition.
There is something both heartbreaking and illuminating in the story of three generations of women, no matter the ties that bind families, whether they be race, religion, or a set of conventions and values. What drew me to write my mother’s memoir was not only the exceptionalism of the women set against the details of family secrets and the enduring sweep of my mother’s historical canvas. What compelled me to write Suddenly Jewish were the questions it provoked: What does it mean to deny one’s identity, to hide the traditions and religion that shaped you, and what is the cost of that denial across generations?
My mother’s journey is a portrait of one woman’s quest for identity and freedom against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world. Estelle was a young Jewish woman struggling to find her place in her environment. She escaped antisemitism by hiding her Jewish identity in order to seek acceptance in a gentile world. But the secrets she carried could not stay buried; they shaped her family’s lives for generations.
Exploring family history is often fraught with adherence to tradition, rebellion, and the secrets that bind them. While we grapple with questions of identity, belonging, assimilation, cultural heritage, resilience, and the search for acceptance, our willingness to explore our stories is a gift to anyone who has ever encountered these philosophical themes.
Denying who we are is not a solution, but an existential burden that passes from one generation to the next. Denial shows humans that the cost of hiding is often paid not just by the one who hides, but by the children and grandchildren who inherit the silence. If you show them the truth, no matter how painful, you discover the path to freedom.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What identity-shaping secrets have been hidden in your family for generations? What was your response when you finally found out? How did the truth affect your identity?
