A Living Lens: Cherry Hill, N.J.
At the event in Cherry Hill, I ran into Vicki Zell, who had a story about the subjects of one of my favorite photographs in the book: a very serious-looking couple named the Sutins, pictured “celebrating” their wedding anniversary. As it turns out, they are the ancestors of — stay with me — Vicki’s father’s significant other, Carol Meiselman of Boynton Beach, Fla. “These are my great-grandparents,” said Meiselman, in a recent interview with the Forward’s Aaron Greenblatt. Meiselman explained that they came from a shtetl called Smilovitchi, in present-day Lithuania, and immigrated to America around 1906, settling in Albany with their seven children. This family photo hung on Meiselman’s walls for years, without her ever realizing it had been published in our newspaper.
Meiselman told the Forward that a cousin gave her “A Living Lens” as a gift and, as they leafed through the book, she immediately recognized the picture. “We found it purely by accident,” she said. “It did some good, though, because we bought umpteen copies of it.”
Alana Newhouse, the Forward’s Arts & Culture editor, is touring the country, speaking about her new book, “A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life From the Pages of the Forward.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
