By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

What the stories our family tell – or decide not to tell – can influence how we view our lives and the world around us. Sometimes our reactions to the past are positive, which makes us want to preserve and continue the culture/customs with which we grew up. Other times, we feel the need to break from the past: discontinuing behavior/thoughts that we find offensive. Two recent memoirs highlight both of these paths. In “Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture” (Pegasus Books), Samantha Ellis explores ways to preserve the language and traditions of her family’s Iraqi-Jewish heritage, while Clare Kinberg not only seeks information about an estranged aunt, but to challenge her father’s racism in “By the Waters of Paradise: An American Story of Racism and Rupture in a Jewish Family” (Wayne State University Press). Both works offer the connections and disconnections the authors feel about their Jewish heritage.
At first, Ellis was unsure how to even name the problem she was facing. Her feelings began with language: although her parents, who were born in Iraq, spoke Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, Ellis doesn’t know enough of the language to teach it to her son. In fact, it’s when she realizes that she can’t sing him lullabies in Judeo-Iraqi Arabic that the English-born author feels a burning need to capture not only the language of her ancestors, but other parts of their culture. Ellis notes that she “wanted to know more about why my language was going extinct, and about what else we keep and what we lose, how we decide what to let go of, and how sometimes we don’t get to make these decisions, but are swept up by history, politics or fate.” She also wants to capture family stories and recipes before they disappear.
For those unfamiliar with the history of Jews in Iraq, her memoir offers an account of how Jewish life in that country changed from an almost idyllic existence (at least in retrospect) to one filled with danger and oppression. The most recent oppression occurred after the creation of the state of Israel: even though most Iraqi Jews were not Zionist and had planned to stay in Iraq, that soon became difficult as antisemitism began to affect every part of their lives. Ellis longs to visit what she sees as her historical homeland, but comes to realize that it is not the current Iraq she wishes to know. Her desire is not really to visit a place, but a time period – the one when Jewish life flourished. She writes, “And anyway, it isn’t just about going back there but about going back then… [for the experience she wants], I’d have to make a journey in time as well as space. I’d have to go back to the Iraq of my parents and grandparents.”
As much as Ellis wants to pass on the good parts of her heritage, there is something she doesn’t want her son to receive: the trauma her parents and grandparents experienced that haunts her in what is now referred to as generational trauma. Her anxiety and nightmares are fueled by the stories of what happen in Iraq. Yet, she also learns that England is not safe from antisemitic actions when she sees a swastika painted on a bench in a park she regularly visits with her son. Although he doesn’t yet know the meaning of the symbol, she worries about their safety. However, she learns there is less to fear in England when people – including the mothers of her son’s friends – not only remove the swastika, but local authorities make plans to act more quickly to remove offensive symbols in the future.
The memoir also contains some fascinating looks at Iraqi Jewish culture. For example, in the chapter “Lilith,” Ellis discusses visiting the British Museum to look at magic bowls from Babylon, which she used as a starting point to discuss Jewish legends about Lilith, whom the ancient rabbis posited was Adam’s first wife, although she is not specifically mentioned in the Bible. The author looks at the history of different Jewish foods, the Jewish tradition of arguing as a way of connecting and the use of food as way to celebrate having survived disasters. The author also explores the history of her birth country, England, and notes its imperfect record when it comes to the Jews living on its shores. Its history also features expulsion and massacres.
“Always Carry Salt” is beautifully written and offers an excellent balance between the personal and historical aspects about which Ellis writes. The memoir’s historical sections offer readers a reminder of the horrific events that have occurred to Jews in Iraq and England. However, the personal aspects serve to show why it is so important to pass down Jewish culture – including language, food and religious traditions – to the next generation, even as Ellis learns what she must let go or reframe, so she can appreciate the beauty of the past without gifting her son the trauma she has experienced. 
While Ellis is the first generation of her family to be born in England, the same is not true of Kinberg. However, Kinberg is not concerned with the way her ancestors were treated in Europe, but how her birth family treated those in the United States who were a different race. Her father was clearly a racist who took part in what has been called “white flight”: quickly moving to a new all-white neighborhood when Black families began to move close to their home in St. Louis in the 1960s. What Kinberg did not know at the time was that she had an Aunt Rose whose marriage to a Black man had caused a rift in the family. Kinberg never met her aunt, but, after Rose’s death, she wanted to learn more about her life. That is partly because of the life Kinberg made for herself: she is a lesbian and feminist activist who is married to a Black woman and who have two adopted Black daughters. The author has also been active in the Jewish feminist movement as a writer and editor.
Although Kinberg discusses her own life, her main focus is trying to understand her Aunt Rose. She learns that Rose’s first marriage ended in divorce and that her son from that marriage was passed between family members and an orphanage before finally being adopted by a family member. When Rose married Mr. Arnwine (the author calls all Black males featured in the work Mr.), she moves with him into the Black community and she is labeled as Black in a U.S. census since mixed race marriages were not accepted at the time – and were even illegal in some states. Kinberg offers a distressing history of the treatment of Blacks in the U.S., including massacres that are rarely taught as part of U.S. history.
Whether it was Rose’s choice to completely separate from the family or whether she was rejected is never completely answered because Rose left no letters or journals that discuss her feelings. Kinberg is aware that the thoughts she gives Rose are her own creation. The author writes, “In telling the stories in this book, I am creating memories of Aunt Rose that are useful to me and that, in keeping with Jewish tradition, I hope will be useful to future generations.” Focusing on the positive means that Kinberg does not deeply delve into the fact that Rose divorced Arnwine because he was physically abusive, something that was also true of one of his earlier marriages. It’s not so much that the author wants to pretend their life together was perfect, but to create a story that in some ways echoes her own.
What is missing, though, is any attempt by Kinberg to understand her father’s behavior. She notes that the stories of the Kinberg family before they emigrated to the U.S. are lost to time, but readers may wonder what occurred during her father’s life that led him to be so fervently racist. It is understandable that, after rejecting that position at an early age, Kinberg feels it is so inexcusable that she doesn’t want to put it in context. She does, however, feel a strong connection to Judaism, even when she disagrees with some mainstream positions about the LGBTQ community and Israel. This connection is so important to her that she writes, “I refused to become an outcast in the Jewish community in which I grew up.” She would live her Judaism by her own rules and understanding.
“By the Waters of Paradise” may leave readers questioning Kinberg’s thoughts about Rose and her extended family, but this well-done memoir offers an interesting look at American history from a different perspective. Underlying the memoir is the author’s desire to discover a safe haven for those who don’t fit society’s heterosexual, racial, Christian norms. One doesn’t have to agree with all the author’s stories of her aunt in order to appreciate the lessons she seeks to teach.