New York Souvenir

Purchased at Runner's World on a cold Sunday in mid-November.

The Tsaddik of Polnoye

This is extremely embarrassing, but not the way a normal person would be embarrassed.

I've just learned that I am a direct descendent, namely the/a great-great-great-granddaughter, of the Tsaddik of Polnoye! That is, the Tsaddik of Polnoye was my grandmother's grandfather.

There are at least three questions you might ask (in no particular order, although your order might tell you something about yourself and your Myers-Briggs type indicator results), if you've read this far:

1) What is a Tsaddik?

2) Where is Polnoye?

3) Why am I embarrassed about this newly-discovered connection?

Answers:

1) A Tsaddik is a very righteous [Jewish] person [man], especially a Hasidic spiritual leader (Wiktionary)

2) Polnoye was a shtetl in what was called Galicia. Here is a map:
http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/russia/map/m4182943/polnoye.htmlYesterday I found a shtetl map that included Polnoye: but today I can't find it. it's the second shtetl above the "K" in UKRAINE.

3) I am embarrassed because I feel extremely proud and don't see any reason why I should, because I had absolutely nothing to do with it and was raised as an independent American woman who thinks (now obviously mistakenly) she can be proud only of her own (and possibly her children's, although even that tarnishes the high standard of individualism I was raised to meet) achievements, not her lineage or the (dubious) accomplishments of her ancestors. A normal person would be embarrassed or perhaps ashamed if her great-great-great-grandfather were some kind of criminal or a nogoodnik who abandoned his wife and child (as my paternal grandfather did, but that's another story).

Drawing Tel Aviv

This is what I was drawing when my friend was drawing me, as we sat in a cafe this morning. She's a serious and trained artist, and knows her way around water colors, whereas I am an amateur, having fun with pen and ink in my Tree Period.