Monday, July 14, 2008

Bagels and the Lithuanian army: Rumor has it I'm Jewish!

Dad likes to drop these little nuggets here and there for us to pick up on, but I can never really tell if he's serious or not. The latest, is that some long lost uncle on the Lithuanian Leonaitis branch used to make bagels. He thinks this makes us Jewish.
I was finally able to pry the rest of the story out of dad's labarynthic memory. Great great great grandpa Christus (interesting that our one link to Judaism is named 'Christ') was apparently forced into the military service for 40 years. That was how long it was supposed to take to un-Jewishize a Jewish Lithuanian boy.
So, do tales of bagels and forced military service make me Jewish?

Bluetails

Last week I sent some of my family history research to my Dad's cousin Anita. I've been calling her lately to learn about our Lithuanian family. She has interesting stories- she has one memory of her great grandmother Caroline Stankievicz: when she went to the funeral, she got in trouble for putting rose petals in her dead grandmother's nostrils. She was about 8 years old and wanted grandma to smell the flowers, and but she got in trouble for her efforts.
Anita told me that in Pittsburgh where she grew up, they used to call the Lithuanians bluetails. My dad said it was a derogatory name.