David Laskin wanted to put faces to history – from his grandfather’s sister who founded Maidenform to his relatives who perished in the Holocaust.
His award-winning biographical memoir, “The Family,” will come alive Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Solel in Highland Park, as he talks about how his family epitomizes the history of the Jewish people and the 20th century.
He’ll show vintage Maidenform bra ads, his grandfather’s first cousins, who instead of immigrating to America went to Palestine and were present at the creation of the state of Israel, and finally the entire branch of the family lost in the Holocaust.
That part of the story was a revelation to Laskin, who only found out what happened when he received photos of this branch of the family from a relative in Israel.
“I have traveled all over the U.S. and met many relatives who also never knew,” he said in a phone interview. “It wasn’t like it was a secret. It was just something that wasn’t talked about. It was too raw, too painful.”
In large part, this was what inspired him to write “The Family.”
“I thought (the Holocaust) just happened to other Jewish families,” he said. “I was looking at those pictures and thinking, ‘I never heard these names.’ In the photos they look like regular people, intelligent and kind. That was when the light bulb went off.”
Personalizing history is what Laskin does, much in the vein of Erik Larsen (“Devil in the White City”) who contributed a blurb to “The Family.” Laskin also wrote the bestselling, “The Children’s Blizzard,” another true story of the immigrant experience, which chronicled a devastating winter storm that hit the Upper Midwest in 1888.
He is drawn to writing non-fiction as a way of taking the lives of ordinary people and describing how they intersect with history.
“History made and broke my family,” he said. “I think it’s that sense of intimacy to which readers have responded.”
“The Family” was selected for the congregation’s OneBook Solel initiative, in which members read a designated book with Jewish themes, enhanced with discussions and special programming.
But Laskin said people have told him you don’t have to be Jewish to take “The Family” to heart. Gary Salit, OneBook Solel chair, said that while the book is specifically about Laskin’s family, it is also “a universally-appealing account of courage, faith, resilience and love.”
Writing “The Family” has been life changing, Laskin said. He refers to himself as a non-observant Jew, but in writing the book, he said, “I learned a huge amount about my people. I learned a huge amount about the faith of my ancestors and how important a part it played in their lives. I went to Israel twice and fell in love with the land and the people. “
He has been asked (and berated) about not more religious.
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“I’m not a joiner,” he said. “I don’t expect I will run out and become a member of a local synagogue, but I feel I have connected with many Jewish-Americans and Israeli Jews as a result of the book.”
That’s the thing about Reform Judaism, he said. “It’s a big tent. I have relatives who tell me, ‘Shame on you,’ but there is a very large part of the tent saying, ‘Welcome back.'”
Congregation Solel is located at 1301 Clavey Rd. The program is free and open to the public.