A race to remember family history

Not wanting her four grandchildren to have the same regrets she had about not asking her grandparents questions about family history, Hewlett Bay Park resident Lorraine Lotzof Abramson wrote her memoir.

Titled “My Race: A Jewish Girl Growing Up Under Apartheid in South Africa,” Abramson’s book takes the reader on a journey that spans five generations and from South Africa to Israel, to the U.S. and to Ludza, Latvia. Published by DBM Press and is available online and at local bookstores.

Abramson, 64, not only tells the tale of a girl growing up Jewish in a racist police state, but with its mentions of how a nation used religion to fosters it beliefs, parallels current events with the Taliban in Afghanistan and other fundamental Muslim groups in countries such as Iran.

“There were no diaries,” Abramson said about her initial research. “Just digging down into my mind. Thoughts came to be that I haven’t thought about in years.”

Viewing her life as chapters, “most people lives are chapters,” she said, Abramson would take pen and paper with her everywhere and wrote down the memories as they came to her.

A Gotham Writers Workshop memoir class helped her organized those thoughts and allowed Abramson to meet some diverse people who were also writing a memoir.

“I had a story I wanted to tell, but no idea how to make that story into a book,” she said, adding she met some interesting people in that class. “The class steered me into a

direction,” she said.

Abramson’s book, which was titled by her son, holds a reader’s attention with a double meaning that persists throughout the story. “The thing about it, is it stops you cold,” iWordsmith book editor Brandon Toropov said about the title, who edited the book and “coached” Abramson through the process. “Which of the two meanings does it end up embracing? Both, of which, are very powerful.”

From noting the racial attitudes of her South African peers and their parents to running and winning races, Abramson slides between global history and a personal story that transports the reader to the specific time period, while allowing for reflection of the present.

Many photographs that were kept by Abramson’s mother Sadie Faiga, also populate the book, which helps bring the memories alive. “It was an embarrassment of riches,” Toropov said.

Abramson makes it all the more interesting with the emphasis on family connections from meeting and marrying her husband Richard, “the American,” to moving to the U.S., having her own children — Gregg and Jill — to traveling with her father David Lotzof to his hometown of Ludza and with her grandchildren to Israel.

“I urged her to keep writing and not worry too much about the piece if it,” said Herald columnist Randi Kreiss, a friend of Abramson’s who read an early draft of the first chapter. “I thought her story needed to be shared, especially with her children and grandchildren.”

Held back to running in the Olympics due to South Africa’s apartheid policy, Abramson ran in the Maccabi Games for both Israel and the U.S. — her adopted home country. “I have lived here 42 years and this country has been incredibly good to be,” said Abramson, who retains her South African accent.

Abramson discovered that she has “staying power” as the book that was released last month took five years to write and came to be with much encouragement from family and friends.

“As a writer I would like the reader to tap into a society where they don’t agree with everything, but they live under those conditions and ponder those questions for themselves.”