“Daddy,” I asked my 97-year-old father, “do you feel more American or Polish?” He replied, “I feel like a Jew.” Finding My Father is The New York Times bestselling author Deborah Tannen’s quest to piece together the puzzle of her father’s life. Beginning with his astonishingly detailed memories of the Hasidic community in Warsaw into which he was born in 1908, she traces his journey: through his arrival in the U.S. at age twelve, quitting high school at age fourteen to work in New York’s Garment District, yet eventually establishing the largest workers’ compensation law practice in New York and running for Congress. As Deborah comes to better understand her father’s — and her own — relationship to Judaism she uncovers aspects of her father’s life she never would’ve imagined. This is a memoir of Eli Tannen’s life and the ways it reflects the near century that he lived. But even more, it’s about a daughter’s struggle to see her father clearly, to know him more deeply and to tell a more truthful story about her family — and herself.
Nonfiction
Finding My Father: His Century-Long Journey from WWI Warsaw and My Quest to Follow
- From the Publisher
September 1, 2019
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