From Old to New: Discovery and Insight into a Long-Forgotten World

Doron Friedman, who has lived and worked throughout the Americas, Israel and Europe and traveled extensively to various corners of the world for both work and pleasure, relates an incredible story of his genealogical search. In the mid-2000s, Doron stumbled upon a treasure trove of family documents in Israel, including photos, official correspondence and personal letters ranging from the late 1800’s to the late 1940s. Together, they tell a fascinating modern-day history of the Friedman family in the Old World and their experience and struggles in the Land of Israel before the creation of the modern-day State. They document everyday life in a Jewish enclave in a small Ruthenian outpost of Subcarpathian Galicia, the trials and tribulations of soldiers and families in WWI, interwar Poland, Aliya to the Jewish homeland, rising antisemitism back home, struggles in creating a new life and the ultimate horrors of the Holocaust and the demise of those left behind in the old world. Doron will recount the process of organization, documentation, human interaction and the domino effect of how one discovery led to the next, revealing fascinating historical first-person accounts and stories, ranging from the detailed experience of a Jewish soldier in WWI to present day interactions with the family of friends mentioned in letters over 100 years ago.