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their dismay with the criticism.

Stern was particularly
dismayed by the AJC’s criticism;
Stern was the national AJC’s
expert on anti-Semitism for 25
years. He stressed that there
were real points of disagreement
between him and Ajlouny on the
content of the definition and on
other matters relating to Israel,
and that the charge that the
event would have been objec-
tionable to Murray Friedman
was false.

The rancor over this partic-
ular event, Stern believes, “is a
reflection of exactly the danger”
of giving the IHRA definition
the force of law, “the idea that
you can’t even have a discus-
sion about whether a particular
definition has a positive or
negative impact on combating
anti-Semitism.” Ajlouny said she wasn’t
particularly surprised by the
backlash. “It affirms that the attempt
to silence narratives is alive
and well,” she said.

Academic freedom was also
on Berman’s mind.

“Academic institutions
generally do not respond to
external pressure to change
the contents of classes or the
contents of programs,” said
Berman, who also holds the
Murray Friedman Chair of
American Jewish History.

Rodeph Shalom hosts
many educational events
related to Israel that represent
a wide variety of perspec-
tives, Maderer said; recent
speakers have included Asaf
Romirowsky, a fellow at the
Middle East Forum, and Israel
Defense Forces veterans who
are a part of Breaking the
Silence. Such speakers always
attract controversy, she said.

“If the only ideas I brought
in about Israel excluded any
tough truths about the territo-
ries, let’s say, then I would be
missing out on the next genera-
tion of the Jewish community,”
Maderer said. l
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SCREENING SCREENING
Reunite Continued from Page 1
“I just got so interested in
it that, as my kids said, I went
down the rabbit hole,” she said.

She knew her mother came
from a large immigrant family
whose members lived nearby,
but her father’s side was more
mysterious. He never spoke
much about his family, and
his parents died before she was
born. In January, she trans-
ferred the results of a 23andMe
DNA test she had taken years
ago to MyHeritage, another
genealogy site for people
looking to build their family
trees, to learn more.

She saw she had a strong
match with a German woman
named Larissa Grinblat and
her son, Leo Speiser. They
shared about as much DNA as
Samuels did with her known
first cousins.

Intrigued, she reached
out to them. Speiser spoke
English and connected her
with Grinblat. The latter was
on the site looking for infor-
mation about Morris Gandel,
a name Samuels didn’t recog-
nize. Grinblat sent her an old
family photograph showing a
man with two leg amputations,
his wife and their five children,
one of whom was the man she
was tracing. They had lived in
Mogilev, Belarus.

While corresponding with
Grinblat and Speiser, Samuels
used her test results and inter-
views with known family
members to track down other
paternal family members she
had never met. She created a
Facebook group for them to
communicate and added
Grinblat, even though they
weren’t sure how they were
related. As the members compared
notes and family stories,
Samuels and Grinblat learned
that the man in the photo
with leg amputations was
Samuels’ grandfather’s eldest
brother, Chaim Gandel. A
family member said he was
a soldier who served in the
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A Gandel family tree
Russo-Japanese War near the
turn of the 20th century, and
sustained his injuries during
his service.

All of Chaim Gandel’s
siblings, including Samuels’
grandfather Louis Gandel,
immigrated to the United
States, but he was unable
to secure a visa. Of his five
children, four immigrated to
the U.S. Only the youngest,
Lazar Gandel, stayed behind.

He was Grinblat’s grandfather.

The two women finally
understood how they were
related — Samuels’ grandfather
Louis Gandel and Grinblat’s
great-grandfather Chaim
Gandel were brothers.

Grinblat was still searching
for answers about her great-
uncle Morris Gandel. Her
grandfather had told her
stories about his older brother
sending letters, photographs,
money and packages of items
from the U.S. that the family
sold for food.

In an email, Grinblat said
the correspondence continued
even through the horrors
of World War II, when the
Russian government moved
the family to a safer location
because of Chaim Gandel’s
service as a veteran. Later,
Mogilev would be occupied
by the Nazis and Jews would
be crowded into ghettos and
killed in mass executions.

Grinblat said Lazar Gandel
also fought at Stalingrad, where
he was seriously wounded, and
JEWISH EXPONENT
left her grandmother to care
for the family. The clothing and
money from Morris Gandel
were a lifeline.

“My mother told me that
during the war there was
hunger and cold,” she wrote. “It
was so cold in the apartment
Chai. News for people who know
we don’t mean spiced tea.

See Reunite, Page 26
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