Parallel Lines | Genealogy Journal | Jacobi Papers | Scottish Jewry | Village Jews | Selected Lectures on Genealogy
Parallel Lines by Dr. Neville Lamdan
Reaching far beyond a family memorial book, Parallel Lines is a richly styled and illustrated historical treatise, told from three viewpoints. The initial story is of Neville Lamdan’s process of genealogical exploration that uncovered six generations of two dissimilar family lines, from the late 18th century till now. Neville then uses this information to exemplify Eastern European Jewish history. And conversely, he explores the lives and motivations of the family members, drawing from historical fact. Through its division into ‘general’ and ‘family’ parts, Parallel Lines draws out the relevance of the personal lives of these ‘ordinary’ Jews to our understanding of generic Jewish history. A commonality between two discrete Jewish universes emerges, (the “parallel lines that met”,) inviting the understanding that our heritage is a single entity, comprising each and every Jew’s life experience.
Writing with immense charm, Neville has “breathed life into the Family Trees” and into geo-political history too. His empathy and respect for those whose lives are memorialized here and nowhere else, their dignity, and the miracle of their survival, is apparent on every page.
With Neville, we can see that our forebears don’t just deserve to be remembered. They can give us “a firm anchor in the past, a sharpened identity in the present and a heightened sense of purpose for the future.“
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Parallel Lines, the full book, is available to download free of charge (106mb).
Parallel Lines, following this link is a file size message. Simply click ‘Download‘ and confirm again on the next page. It is recommend to view in Acrobat Reader.
Table of Contents, Introduction and sample pages
The Family Trees are for private use only and are not to be uploaded to any public or commercial genealogy website. They are in Gedcom format, which can be viewed with all genealogical software programs.
Mandel Family Tree
Cantor Family Tree
Parallel Lines Book Launch