Our branch of the family tree grows from four root-families that lived in an area of Poland called Mazovia. Our Goodstein, Lewin, Fuks and Schancupp ancestors lived in several shtetls in this region for many years—some since the 1600s. In the 1800s, Mazovia was part of a zone called the Pale of Settlement. Poland was under Russian rule at this time. Jews were confined to the Pale and lived with many restrictions and unfair laws dictating everything from the kind of work they were allowed do, to where they could live, and the kinds of businesses they were allowed to run. Despite these laws—and also because of some of these restrictions—there grew a whole way of life.

 

Menschlichkeit, a deeply rooted ideal shaped by a thousand years of Eastern European Jewish experience, was the central value of shtetl life. Rabbi Neil Kurshan defines Menschlichkeit as “responsibility fused with compassion—a sense that one’s own personal needs and desires are limited by the needs and desires of other people. A mensch acts with self-restraint and humility, always sensitive to the feelings and thoughts of others.” The concept of Menschlichkeit was woven into every aspect of shtetl life. The nazis were not only successful at ending the lives six million Jews including almost all of our Eastern European cousins—they also destroyed an entire culture.

 

In this book, our ancestors come to life through a series of stories, interviews, articles, poems, illustrations, photographs and artifacts. Our Ancestors’ Voices opens on our family’s life in the shtetls Sochocin, Ciechanow and Plonsk in the 1800s through the turn of the century and then follows our relatives on their journeys to their new lives as immigrants in a new country.