Cousin Daniel Stanger has helped me to locate my father’s naturalization papers in the Israeli State Archives. Dated 4 July 1947, they show me a familiar-looking young man I’ve never seen before — I’ve only seen photos of my dad as a bearded dad and as a chubby blonde child in Czernowitz.

Behold…pretty cool! Many thanks to Daniel, who is related to me through the Schmatniks and also possibly by marriage, through the Stangers – my great-great grandmother is Rosa Stanger, who married Chaim Blei in 1868 in Sadagora.