Our Lit­tle His­to­ries is a multi­gen­er­a­tional fam­i­ly saga that asks: what are the things that con­nect us — 21st cen­tu­ry Jews in Amer­i­ca — with our ​“fam­i­ly” in Israel, whether that fam­i­ly includes sib­lings, cousins, or rel­a­tives so dis­tant that the con­nec­tion is unclear.

Jen­nifer Green­berg-Wu is a cura­tor of ​“Liv­ing Instal­la­tions.” When Belaruss­ian Tycoon Max­im Pra­novitch hires her to cre­ate a real­i­ty show in his home­town of Slawharad, she reach­es out to her Israeli rel­a­tive Nadav to par­tic­i­pate. Six gen­er­a­tions ear­li­er, Raizel Shul­man, a young moth­er of three boys in the remote shtetl of Pre­poisk, des­per­ate­ly tries to save them from forced recruit­ment to the Czar’s army. In sev­en long chap­ters that play out in Chica­go, Tel Aviv, a Kib­butz in pre-state Pales­tine, Vil­na, Min­sk, and the vil­lages of Belorus­sia, Raizel’s descen­dants are faced with dra­mat­ic choic­es as they enter the wider world. 

As chal­leng­ing ques­tions about Judaism, Israel, and our own Jew­ish iden­ti­ty con­tin­ue to sur­face, Our Lit­tle His­to­ries por­trays, through the sto­ry of a fam­i­ly, what has brought us to this moment.