An Orphan in History : One Man's Triumphant Search for His Jewish Roots. This item is unavailable.An Orphan in History : One Man's Triumphant Search for His Jewish Roots

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.

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.