Leon Uris, author of "Exodus"
Between the world wars, the Soviet Union isolated its Jewish minority. They were shorn of their synagogues, schools, books and most vestiges of Jewish life. We did not know if a Jewish community still existed. As a result of the Holocaust and the wars, documentation became more and more difficult to come by.
Miriam Weiner, a courageous and brilliant historian and archivist, has haunted the archives of Eastern Europe, painstakingly piecing together the world that was. Here she has memorialized hundreds of shtetls and towns through document examples and photographs. Her earlier book on Polish Jewry alerted us to the fact that she was equal to the task. "Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova" is part of a masterwork of love and remembrance, so important to me and my children."
