Last Sunday, the board of the Zambrow Landsmanschaft met at a deli in Manhattan. We came together to discuss the various projects in which the organization is involved. Our connection with each other is through our ancestors, parents and grandparents, who lived in Zambrow. We represent different religious outlooks and live in various places in the tri-state area. Yet all of us feel a bond to each other, one strong enough to give up a Sunday afternoon to come together to discuss matters pertaining to the organization.

We all have different stories about how our ancestors left Zambrow. One member’s paternal grandfather left in 1902. Another’s great grandmother left in 1920, the same year as my Zeidy.  The father and grandfather of our treasurer were integrally involved in the organization for many years, and he has spearheaded the effort to keep the organization alive in recent years. His grandfather left Zambrow in 1924, then returned in 1930, came back by himself in 1932, returned again in 1934 and then emigrated with his family in 1935.

Here are his grandparents, Rabbi Simcha Maslow and his wife, Sara Reizel, people my grandparents surely must of have known:

Here is a letter from 1947 from the Zembrover Relief Fund that was involved in sending money and supplies to their fellow landsmen who had survived the Holocaust. My Zeidy’s name, Joe Waxman, is listed as one of the vice-presidents while Aaron’s grandfather, S. [Simcha] Maslow is listed as an honorary member.  (Rabbi Maslow is listed as “reverend” because, while an ordained rabbi, he did not want to be referred to as a rabbi since he was did not work as a rabbi. A fuller biography of Rabbi Maslow can be found at http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/forum-pol-zambrow-maslow-simcha-sara.htm)

What does it say that more than 70 years after Jewish life in Zambrow ended, some descendants of Zambrow still strive to stay connected? What is the purpose of the organization in 2015? These were the questions that occupied us at our meeting. There were two competing sentiments: we have important work to do in reaching out to others whose ancestors hailed from Zambrow, in publicizing the translation of the Yizkor book, and in using 21st century technology to keep the memory of Jewish Zambrow alive and honor our ancestors. On the other hand, is there any real future for a landsmanschaft organization in America when the only connections date back two generations ago and most descendants of Zambrow neither have heard of the organization or don’t want anything to do with us?

I sat on the subway on my way home after the meeting, thinking to myself that both conclusions are true. Yet I am convinced that there are stories that remain to be told, links that remain to be connected. To what end, I’m not really sure. But, somehow, the future is not severed from the past, nor have we fully heard all the voices contained in our past.