My Own Family’s Roots
In 1913, my Great Grandpop Sam, his father, his mother, and his brother Yudel came to Philadelphia on a ship from Lithuania. He was a young teenager. When they arrived, his family was sick and quarantined and was going to be sent back to Europe. My Great, Great Grandmother Seina made a hysterical plea for young Sam, who was well, to stay and fulfill their dream. Seina died at sea going back. Yudel never made it back to the states. He fought in both World Wars and died fighting in World War II.
But the story has great relevance today in light of our present refugee crisis for multiple reasons. First, I should explain that all 8 of my grand grandparents were Jewish immigrants from different parts of Europe, I was just particularly close with my Grandpop Sam so I will focus on his story. Next, his story in particular has so much meaning in light of what is happening today.
Grandpop Sam always told us that he “lost” his family. We never could understand how this happened. We know he had gone to Boston in search of his father, and we had heard rumblings that perhaps his father was in Chicago, but Grandpop spoke with a heavy Yiddish accent and he did not like to talk about sad things, so he never described to us that his family was ripped away from him at the port in Philadelphia and we did not understand how they were separated or lost. We had images of the little mouse Fivel from “An American Tail,” but that was it.
Another relevant matter to today’s immigrant crisis is what happened to my grandfather once he came here. He did not have immediate family as they were all sent back. So, he went to live with relatives who were kind enough to take him in. 
Grandpop was fortunate to have a place to live while he got his feet on the ground. He was a tailor and he worked in a garment factory for his life. A few years after he came he fought in World War I. He earned a Purple Heart and a Silver Star but he would never tell us what they were for. He was in some brutal battles and we imagine it was very difficult for him. He came home and worked again as a tailor. He sewed beautifully actually. He went to night school to learn English and that is where he met my Great-Grandmom Sara. So, even though his life was not easy, he was not living in a prison on a cold cement floor. He came here for opportunity and he became a union member and a home owner and his life flourished.
It actually took us 100 years and the help of ancestry.com to find our family. When families are being torn apart by the current administration, I am not sure if they realize that it will take a century to overcome this, but that is how long it took us and my grandfather was not tortured when he arrived. In 2012, my kids had to do a family tree project for their school. They had some friends who went on ancestry.com and asked if they could too. They showed ancestry.com to my sister, Julie, and she became very eager to work on our family tree. Julie has actually blogged about this as well:
https://www.levingenealogy.com/2019/05/02/discovering-my-great-grandfathers-lost-relatives/
The abridged version is that when we added our tree, my sister Julie spent a lot of time researching and found a Russian professor who was active on Jewish genealogy sites. 
This woman knew some of our cousins! She asked if she could ask us some questions. To our shock, this woman was able to connect us with Grandpop Sam’s immediate family now living in Moscow, Russia and Karkiv, Ukraine!
It turns out that my Grandpop has a nephew named Lev, my Grandfather Simon’s first cousin, who is still alive and now in his early 90s, and living in Moscow! Lev has a beautiful family. My Grandpop Sam had another brother named Moisey and his family is alive and living in the Ukraine. They survived the World Wars, the Holocaust, and Stalin, and are somehow alive and still Jewish. It was shocking, just shocking.
Perhaps more remarkable is that while we had absolutely no idea that any of them existed, they knew about us. Apparently they had been in contact with Grandpop Sam through the 1940s and were aware of his whereabouts until that point. They knew he had a family. They had a dream of looking for us and my second cousin Yuri had been to Philly several times looking for us with no luck.
I could go on and on and tell you about each member of the family, but instead I will tell that in 2013, one hundred years to the day that my great grandfather came to Philadelphia, we returned to Russia to meet our lost family.
How is this Relevant today?
- First, my Grandpop did not have an easy start here in America but compared to the immigrants in the jails across our country, it was a walk in the park.
- When families are separated, like mine was, it is not easy to reconnect. Even with modern technology and DNA testing, it can take many years and multiple generations to find each other.
- Families can get trapped in other countries never to reunite.
- It takes the kindness of strangers for folks to get a clean start in a new place, even when they are not coming from a crisis situation.
- Immigrants help build this country. My great-grandfathers barely spoke English when they served for the US army in World War I. For many years, our economy and military have depended on the major contributions of immigrants.
- The major majority of immigrants coming to the United States are good people coming here with hope for something better than whatever they are escaping. They are risking everything to start over.
What can we, as voiceover actors, do to help?
- We can give the silent masses a voice.
- There are organizations trying to get refugees out of detention centers and jails. You can lend your voice for videos, PSAs, phone messages… the list goes on.
- Here is a link to and article about First Friends, the group I plan to help:
- https://njjewishnews.timesofisrael.com/an-important-first-contact-for-the-undocumented/
- This is an interfaith group to help find a better place to get these people situated. I am in touch with Victor Salama, the head of the group, and in addition to visiting refugees, I have offered pro-bono voiceover services to help as much as they need.
- If you want to be a part of my voiceover team that I have put together, please email me at laura@lauraschreibervoice.com.
Whether you are sharing a recent personal experience or your work philosophy, the blog gives a more in-depth glimpse into who you are and how you tick. It let’s folks know what is going on in your head, and you can really open up. The catch though, is that in the voiceover world we give up our private lives a bit for the sake of our public ones. We may not be Beyonce or Lady Gaga, but in our own sphere we have given up our anonymity by existing on the multiple profiles we post and share. So, when attempting to share, carefully think about the way in which you reveal yourself. If you want to seem relatable, make sure that you in fact post blogs that are warn, helpful, and approachable.
When you are having a bad day, don’t blog about it. Call a friend. Go for a walk. Meditate. But for heaven’s sake, do not have a public melt-down for all to see and post it on every voiceover site and share it with every person you know. The voice over community is small. People want to have each other’s backs. We generally lift each other up. I feel that I have a wonderful family in my VO friends. Blog about the lessons you learn from rising up, from over coming, from doing your best. Everyone has good days and bad, but your clients do not need to know about the bad ones. Give them a reason to think the world of you and to hire you. Give them a reason to sing your praises from the rooftops. Give them sunshine and pixie dust and sparkling glitter. Give them what they can get only from booking you! That is what you blog about!
So, they tend to just enter the house, much like on a sitcom. We often have no idea who is coming when or how long they are staying. They just show up. Luckily they all get along really well. Next, this may give you the mis-impression that I am in some way relaxed. Quite to the contrary, I am wrapped very tight. When my twins were born, my husband and I agreed that an open-door policy was more fair to all grandparents. We didn’t want them to miss out, and so all of this craziness, is the result of said policy. So, I have had to change my behavior and learn to “go with the flow” a bit. What does that mean. Well, according to zenhabits.com, “What is going with the flow? It’s rolling with the punches. It’s accepting change without getting angry or frustrated. It’s taking what life gives you, rather than trying to mold life to be exactly as you want it to be.” So yesterday, it meant holding off for a better time to write and just enjoying my family. And you know what, I did!
I think that the reason my kids are so sweet is because they have the attention not just of their parents, both of whom work, but of their grandparents, their aunts, and their uncles, and I think it does take a village. When that village is fragmented, the kids are the ones who suffer. When you wonder how these characters end up on Jerry Springer or Dr. Phil, maybe it was those moments of choice and instead of sticking together and just being together they chose wrong over and over again. My daughter has been watching a lot of Dr. Phil recently, and when I see clips where he admonishes family like this I gather that they made one mistake after another until they stopped supporting each other.
We were worried that the pot holes would hurt their heads because they were so small. Now they will be driving in a month. I spend many hours every day alone in a padded foam booth. So, when family comes over unexpectedly, I have decided to look at it as a gift. I think sometimes it is life telling us to slow down and take it in. I do feel like hitting pause is ok. I am blogging 24 hours after I planned. I am not sure when I will work on my instagram posts. Will I get them done? Yes.
