An Orphan in History: One Man's Triumphant Search for His Jewish Roots - Hardcover

Cown, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1681629771 ISBN 13: 9781681629773

Publisher: Jewish Lights, 2002

Synopsis

Sometimes we must look into the past in order to face the future.

After growing up as a fully assimilated Jew, Paul Cowan embarked in his mid-thirties upon a journey to discover and appreciate his true identity and heritage. This“orphan in history” relates his search for these roots, detailing the path he took from his Park Avenue home to nineteenth-century Lithuania to a contemporary Israeli kibbutz, leading to remarkable personal discoveries that will move everyone who has yearned to know more about their past.

An Orphan in History is a classically beautiful, inspiring story of how one man evolved from describing himself as “an American Jew” to “an American and a Jew.”

This story will inspire you to journey in search of your true self.

About this title

Review

"A deeply moving and very well-written account of a personal twentieth-century odyssey."―Chaim Potok"More than the story of a life; it is the story of an experience.... At a time when many are seeking answers in all sorts of paths―religious, mystical and political―Paul Cowan managed to find them, and himself, in his own history."―Richard F. Shepard, New York Times “Beautiful and moving.... An Orphan in Historywill interest hyphenated Americans of every variety.”―Charles Silberman, New York TimesBook Review “The rest of us have caught up with Cowan. More than ever we need his provocative story of the tension between the desire to be an American and the compulsion to be a Jew.”―Lee Meyerhoff Hendler, author of The Year Mom Got Religion: One Woman's Midlife Journey into Judaism

About the Author

Paul Cowan was an inspiring author of several books, including The Tribes of America, The Making of an Un-American, and, with his wife, Rachel Cowan, Mixed Blessings. He died in 1988 of complications from leukemia. Rachel Cowan wrote the Afterword for the paperback edition of An Orphan in History (originally published by Doubleday).

Rabbi Rachel Cowan directs the Jewish Life Program of the Nathan Cummings Foundation in New
York City. Ordained by Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, she teaches and lectures extensively. Her own attachment to psalms as a resource for healing grows from her experience with her late husband Paul Cowan's struggle to find hope in the face of a fatal illness.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jewish Lights
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1681629771
• ISBN 13: 9781681629773
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 278