(Jewish Group) A writer seeks clues of his great-grandmother's murder in 1913

The history of Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe often serves as a strong basis for creating American Jewish identity: Jews escaped persecution and pogroms in Russia and found a secure place of refuge in the “golden land.” This story line fits in well with the general concept of American exceptionalism, a “new Canaan” that was built up by refugees from the old world.

But as is often the case, the issue is more complex than that. Historians agree that the main reason Jews emigrated from Eastern Europe before World War I was to flee not persecution but poverty, since the pogroms in Eastern Europe at that time had affected a relatively small number of Jews. Life in America was by no means as easy as had been imagined in the old world. The first generation of immigrants had a particularly difficult time. It wasn’t until the second and third generations, the children and grandchildren of the “greenhorns,” that Jewish families were able to make good on the American Dream.

In his new book “The End of Her,” American journalist and novelist Wayne Hoffman attempts to discover the secrets surrounding the murder of his great-grandmother Sarah Feinstein, shot to death in Winnipeg in 1913. At the time, this crime shocked the entire Jewish community, yet the murderer was never found.

Now, over a century later, Sarah’s American great-grandson is determined to solve the mystery. His research actually uncovered a number of important facts in his family history, as well as in the history of the Jews in Canada and the United States in general.

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