[dog barking] [click] [dog barking] Woman 1: My role in my family is instigator.

I think I’m the one who stirs everybody up and gets them all together and gets them to acknowledge each other and when I made these paintings of my family, it was a direct effort to stimulate interaction, and it was a reason for us to be in the same space.

Everyone asks me why we look so sad together, and it's because I think it's the first time we're ever on the same plane, and we're not that comfortable.

Narrator: Lumina Infinite Gershfield was born in 1978 in Hollywood, California.

Due to both the lifestyle choices and medical conditions of her parents, Lumina was taken to live with a surrogate family in Trout Lake, Washington at the age of six.

For the following decade, Lumina would spend her school semesters living with her surrogate family on a Washington farm and her summers with her birth parents in bohemian Southern California.

In her own words, it was like traveling from Kansas to Oz.

Lumina is now facing a critical decision.

She's trying to decide whether to continue to pursue a relationship with her biological family or accept the fact that it may be in her best interest to walk away and create a family of her own definition.

Lumina: I want to know if family is worth the struggle that it is, and I want to know from the people who already had families and who started this whole, this whole thing.

[laughs] Narrator: To help answer this question, Lumina would like to learn more about the life of her grandmother, Ann Kaplan, who faced trials within her own family and who was known to be a strong leader that made the tough decisions.

♪♪ Although Ann is still alive, she suffers from the advanced stages of Alzheimer's and can no longer share her wisdom with Lumina.

So, Lumina will set out to find the answer to her question from the people who knew Ann best, Anne's family and friends.

Lumina: My definition of family at this point in my life is probably a lot like a blank canvas and trying to figure out if it's just the people that you were born to, or if it's the people that you choose to be around, or if it's people who decide to love you.

Woman 2: Whether acknowledged or not, our ideas on the definition of family are based on ideas that were loaned to us by our parents who got their definition from their parents, and so on, and so on.

But there comes a point in all of our lives where we make a choice.

Do we continue to pass on these definitions handed on to us by our family, or do we let them go and simply come up with our own?

From the studios of BYU Television in Provo, Utah, this is The Generations Project.

♪♪ Hi everyone, I’m Lise Simms, and each week on our program, we bring you the story of someone who for one reason or another wants to connect with an ancestor, or an entire generation of their family tree, and we help them do just that.

We're an ongoing project helping people connect to their ancestors across generations and today that person is Lumina Gershfield.

Hi Lumina.

- Hi.

Lise: What a name.

We'll get to that.

- [laughs] - So, I know you had this very successful career as an artist in Asia, and yet you were drawn to come home.

Can you tell me a little bit about what drew you back?

Lumina: Okay.

I, I loved Asia.

[laughs] I lived in Seoul, Korea, and I was teaching, and I was also exhibiting work in galleries and teaching in a museum, and I was travelling to different countries in Asia which are all more beautiful than the previous one.

Um, but I, I moved back to Boston, Massachusetts, um, where my mother-- my biological mother and my biological father and my biological brother, Ace, um, live currently.

And the thing that really got me to actually leave-- because I kept saying after each year in Korea okay I'll be home in a year, don't worry, but I kept staying 'cause I enjoyed it so much.

um, I got a phone call one day when I was at school from my brother, and that was automatically, um, a siren 'cause my brother just doesn't call me ever and he doesn't pick up the phone when I call.

Lise: Typical brother.

Both: [laughing] - So I knew something was wrong when I heard his voice at the other end of the phone, and he started to talk.

He said, Are you, are you sitting down?

And then I was like, I don't want to have this conversation.

I just want to hang up the phone and pretend that this isn't happening.

And I, I really expected him to tell me, um, something terrible, and he did.

He told me that, um, my father's son from his first marriage, my half-brother, Jesse, had passed away, and um... Lise: I'm sorry.

- Yeah.

It was a really sad moment, and, um, at that moment I realized that I needed to come home because this talk about I'm gonna be there next year, and I had an intention to really come back and be near to my biological family here.

And at that point, I, I realized that I couldn't push it off any further into the future because you just never know when you're gonna get another phone call like that and I actually really expected him to say that my father had passed away because my father is older and has a lot of health issues, so.

Lise: I want to talk really briefly-- I don't mean to cut you off at all-- I want to talk briefly about your childhood because I know, um, at a young age at six, you were, um, supported by a surrogate family and went back and forth between your biological family in California and a surrogate family on a farm in Washington, and you call it going from Kansas to Oz.

I can imagine.

What were you, what were you aware of at the time as a six-year-old?

Was it confusing?

Was it fun?

- Um, I wish, I wish that I had had the perspective that I have now as a thirty-year-old on it.

I think it would've been much more fun.

Unfortunately, I didn't.

I had this six-year-old, um, view where, um, I was really confused.

And I learned at that age that it’s very important to tell children about what's going on.

I think a lot of people try to shield children from adult issues 'cause they think that they're not-- it’s not necessary to explain everything, but at that point I wish that I had understood that, um, there were reasons that I was going to live with another family 'cause I didn't quite at that time.

Lise: And that's what this journey's all about.

Lumina: Right, exactly.

Exactly.

This is me going back and putting together the pieces of what happened 'cause I didn't know.

And people would ask me all the time, kids would ask me at school.

Why, why do you live with other people?

Why don't you live with your mom and dad?

- And your question became is family worth it?

Is family worth what?

- Um, is family worth coming home from Asia for?

Is family worth sacrificing a lot of other things that I want in order to contribute to that thing, this ideal?

It's not an automatic thing for me.

I think for a lot of people, not as-- not that many, but for some people, I think family is a structure that's in place and that they plug in to.

And for me, it was very scattered, and I've had to assemble it, and it takes a lot of energy, so I’m wondering if, if, if I should be putting my energy into this or if I should be fashioning a whole new scenario and leave this one behind.

- And this is where you start this journey.

That's powerful.

That's big stuff you're asking.

Um, you felt that your grandmother, Anne, was maybe a key figure in this, and that's where your story begins, getting to know her through her family and her friends and her co-workers.

I think we should look at that.

Lumina: Okay.

♪♪ Lise: Lumina is on her way to Liberty, New York where she plans to visit with her grandmother, Anne Kaplan.

But before seeing her grandmother, she'll spend some time with a few of Anne's closest friends, former coworkers, and family members.

Lumina: Well, I know that she was mayor, which really makes me happy.

And I guess my grandmother had a very successful delicatessen.

I know that she was a businesswoman.

Do I think it’s possible to be a career woman and a mother successfully?

No.

I don't.

She actually had a nanny who raised her kids which is an interesting thing to note for me because my mom gave me to other people to raise.

People just affect each other whether they know it or not.

Like, who my grandmother was and the way that she lived and just the actions that she went through, the blood that flows in her body, like, came through my mother and is in my body, and the things that she did are in me.

I'm gonna get to meet a lot of pieces of her world.

It's kind of like um... I’m gonna meet her again.

♪♪ Lise: Anne Rappaport was born on April 24th, 1921 in Sullivan County, New York.

In 1947, she, along with her husband, Mo Kaplan, opened Kaplan's Delicatessen and Restaurant in Monticello, New York.

At the time, Monticello, located in New York's famed Catskills, was a prime resort and bungalow community.

Kaplan's deli quickly became one of the most popular stopping-off points for vacationers and college-bound students.

Anne not only became a well-respected business leader but an active and progressive community member.

When no one else in town would hire Black servers, Anne went ahead and did it and no one ever questioned her.

Then, in 1974, at the age of 52, she became the first and only female mayor in Monticello's history.

Before visiting with Anne, Lumina's hoping to learn more about Anne's life.

She's attending a special lunch prepared by Vinnie Brown, a former employee of Kaplan's and one of Anne's closest friends.

- I have a three-word answer for Anne: before her time.

- Before-- Vinnie and Lumina: her time.

- That's the three words.

She was about progress, Lumina: Mm-hm.

- making changes, Lumina: Mm-hm.

- making a difference in someone's life, Lumina: Mm-hm.

- and she did all those things.

She went out of her way to make sure that Blacks were involved in the restaurant business or being hired, period.

And here she is doing that in Monticello.

Lise: Also in attendance is Judge Burton Ladina who worked with Anne while she was mayor.

He's sharing a story about Anne's political savvy.

Burton: Anne was, uh, all business, and she was tough.

Um, she had her, uh, uh, definite ideas about what she wanted to do, and she went ahead and did it.

I became, uh, village judge, and I got elected, uh, to a full term in 1970.

Four years later, I was up for re-election, and that's when Anne decided she was going to-- I don't know if she had been in politics before that, but she decided to run for mayor.

I was in the Republican Party, she was in the Democratic Party.

She thought that if I was actively running for re-election that it would hurt her chances as a Democrat, so she engineered a deal whereby no one would run against me.

♪♪ Lise: In 1951, a 19-year-old Gloria Whitehead took a job as a live-in housekeeper and nanny to Anne Kaplan's young children.

Over the next 50 years, Gloria would work side-by-side with Anne, and when Anne began to suffer from dementia, it was Gloria who took on the responsibility of her care.

Lumina is meeting with Gloria to look at some of Anne's photos as well as to hear stories from the lifetime Gloria and Anne shared together.

Lumina: That's my grandmother.

She had some big hair.

Is it red?

Gloria: It was red.

Lumina: Red, huh?

Gloria: Red.

Every Friday.

- She would dye her hair red?

- Go to the beauty parlor and make sure it stayed red.

- Every Friday?

- Every Friday.

Lumina: Owner of Kaplan's deli hanging up her ladle.

- There she is.

That's a good one.

- "Anne Kaplan, owner of Kaplan's Delicatessen "in Monticello prepares a hot dog for a summer customer."

Hot dogs, huh?

- Yeah, that was a big thing.

So we would start at 12 noon.

We.

12 noon.

And we would work on the weekends sixteen hours a day, and then she would have to check out always.

She did a lot of work.

She was a very strong woman, and I spent more time with the children because she was in the restaurant.

They didn't want to eat there, so I took them home and taught them all the things you do in a house.

And we made dinner together, we cleaned up together, and then she got involved in the politics, and I was with her.

She carried me everywhere she went.

And that was where our life went.

Just like that.

Always together.

She was like my mother, my sister, my teacher, my best friend.

So I took after taking care of her for ten years.

Lise: Lumina is finally on her way to visit with her grandmother, Anne, who has been living at a nursing home for the past ten years and is in the latter stages of Alzheimer's.

[hospital chatter] [kiss] Lumina: Hi Grandma.

It's me, it's Lumina.

Grandma, it's me.

Come on.

Where are you, grandma?

Where are you?

Come on out, come and see me.

I'm right here, grandma.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Um, I'm sad because she didn't open her eyes, and I like seeing her eyes and her smile.

It's hard.

She's in between, like, living and not living right now, and so it’s an interesting place to interface.

I'm really grateful to be able to touch her and talk to her though.

Um, and listening to her heartbeat was... was soothing.

It's a heartbeat that I’m connected to.

♪♪ Lise: In order to better understand Anne's family and where they came from, Lumina and her great uncle, David Rappaport, Anne's brother, also known as Butch, are traveling to the family farm where David and Anne were raised, 20 minutes north of Monticello in Sullivan County.

♪♪ Anne's parents were Esther and Isidor Rappaport, Russian-Jewish immigrants who, shortly after arriving in America, settled down on a farm.

They supported their family of seven children by raising chickens and horses, growing vegetables, and eventually opening a boarding house on the farm to make extra money.

David is telling Lumina about Esther and Isidor's journey to America.

Lumina: Do you know where they came from when they came to the U.S.?

- They came from Russia, Babruysk.

That's the only name that I know from Russia, but I couldn't tell you where it is or what-- They knew each other from Europe, from the same town.

They came through Ellis Island, and then they lived on the East Side with all the, uh, the, uh, people that came from Europe.

- So Isidor was Rappaport, - Yeah.

- but Esther, before she became Rappaport-- - Her maiden name was Esther Schmuckler.

- What?

- Schmuckler.

Both: [laughing] - That's right.

Schmuckler.

S-C-H-M-U-C-K-L-E-R. Lumina: Schmuckler.

[laughing] Butch was telling me about Esther and Isidor, and I’m really fascinated with Esther and Isidor.

Um, I wanna know who they are.

I've always been fascinated.

I've just had their images, but I don't know anything about their story, so Butch mentioned that they immigrated to the United States from somewhere in Russia, and they came through Ellis Island.

- So the name Schmuckler was a surprise.

Lumina: [laughing] It was sad.

I-- Actually, as a child, I encountered a family whose last name was Schmuck, and there was a photo-- because they had, like, this booth at the fair, and it was called The Schmuck Family Bubbles-- and I carried this photo around, and I would often laugh at it and say, Can you believe that there's a family whose last name was Schmuck?

Isn't that hilarious?

Lise: And then here you are.

- [laughing] What goes around comes around.

- Right.

I want to go back to the scene with your beautiful grandmother.

Lumina: Mm.

- It just did something to me.

You obviously have a really intimate relationship with her, and you've watched her fading.

Is that true?

Lumina: Well, actually no.

Lise: Well, tell me.

- I’m sorry.

Lise: No please, I wanna know.

- I have a deep feeling for her, and I've learned about, um, what she means to me as an adult, but I didn't have a deep relationship with her as a, as a child.

I didn't have a deep relationship with any of my grandparents, but she's my only remaining grandparent, so when I came back, I asked my family about how she was, and nobody could tell me very much about her, so I kind of went on a little road trip to find her and seek her out, and it was like I was just so, I was so relieved that she was still alive when I got back that I was able to see her at least and to recognize her for who she was in my life before she was gone because I wasn't able to do that with any of my other grandparents, and I...

I want, I wanna say thank you to so many people because as I grow older, I just recognize the contribution that they made to my life and how ungrateful I could h-- I was as a child because I just didn't understand what was going on.

But she sacrificed a lot to make her family what it is.

And for my brother and I.

She actually, um, contributed financially to our care when we were children and advised my mother to have us live with another family, so as I learn about her, I recognize her role and how much she gave to me.

Lise: Well and I can understand why that would make this journey happening now in your life more urgent-- Lumina: Mm-hm.

- because you don't want to miss out on the last moments, right?

Lumina: Mm-hm.

- Um, I want to talk about her for a minute.

Lumina: Okay.

- Wow, what a powerhouse.

In an era when women were women, she was an activist, a role model, a mayor.

Did you know all that about her before starting this journey?

- I knew she was mayor, but I didn't know how that came about.

It's just kind of an outlier there.

Like, my grandmother was mayor, and I didn't know what that meant or how that came to be or how I could incorporate that in my life, and then, like, some of the role that we looked at was how did she run her family and be mayor at the same time.

Now as I’m starting to make decisions about what kind of a family I'd like to have and, and how to manage career and family, I’m wondering for the first time, how did she do that?

How did she run this restaurant, run for election, have children, how did she do these things together?

Lise: And she clearly supported the African-American community at a time when that was unheard of.

Lumina: I’m so happy that that's true.

I'm so happy that that's true.

It's actually always been a very potent thing for me watching the race relations in the United States, which is interesting 'cause I didn't grow up in a very racially diverse area in Washington state, but I've always felt really strongly about it.

And I was so glad-- Lise: It's in your blood.

- I think it really is.

I mean, I was s-so glad-- - Proud.

Lumina: to find out that she had fought on that side that I would want to be aligned on and-- at a time when people were not on that side.

Lise: Yeah.

And I love that this all kind of distills down to, you said it, so black and white.

Can you be a career woman and a mother?

And you said no.

No grey for you.

- I did.

Lise: That means your choice is difficult.

At this point in time, did you know which side of the equation you would land on?

Lumina: At-- in the f-- in the-- Lise: In this point in the journey?

- Well at that point, I, I said no.

I said no.

That I don't-- Lise: You can't do both.

Lumina: And I-- Yeah.

Well, I said that for myself though.

I didn't say that across the board to everybody in the world no, no woman should ever work, but I said that I don't think I can do both.

Um, and as I research my family, I'm not always sure that a family... well, to be perfectly honest, I think that my grandmother's family suffered, um, in some things because of, of her ambition and because of her career.

N-- um, not, not irreparable damage, but I think that there were some moments that were hard.

Lise: So you're still searching for now in-depth information about her parents.

You've been given a tidbit by Uncle Butch.

Your grandmother's fading.

You want to find it out sooner rather than later.

Make this family whole again, at least in your own mind.

Let's follow your journey 'cause it gets really interesting, doesn't it?

Lumina: Mm-hm.

- Yeah.

♪♪ In order to better understand her great-grandmother, Esther Schmuckler, Lumina is setting out for Ellis Island to investigate Esther's arrival to America.

♪♪ ♪♪ Beginning in the late 19th century, Eastern European Jews were fleeing an anti-Semite Russian empire in mass numbers.

By 1920, more than a third of Russia's Jewish population had emigrated to America.

After surviving a weeklong voyage by sea, they arrived at Ellis Island and were processed through the immigration center.

Lumina is meeting with Katherine Daily, Director of the American Family Immigration History Center at Ellis Island.

Katherine is helping Lumina locate Esther's immigration records.

Lumina: So I'd like to look for Esther Schmuckler.

- So why don't you just type in Esther on the first line.

- I think it's k-- I think it's spelled E-S-T-E-R, E-S-T-H-E-R. - Okay and then hit tab and then put in Schmuckler.

- [laughs] - How do you spell it?

- I don't know.

Um, S-C-H-M-U-C-K-L-E-R. - That's good, 'cause um-- and she's a female, so just click this button here-- - Okay.

- and then continue and click again.

Now, she is of Jewish faith, correct?

Lumina: Yes.

- And from where?

Russia?

- Yes.

- Or Romania.

Russia, okay.

Well, my goodness.

Um, we've-- Lumina: We've got one?

Katherine: Yep!

Look at the year.

Lumina: 1907.

- And that's approximately how old she was at that time.

Lumina: 17?

Katherine: Yep.

And she's from they're saying in Russian, Soroki?

Lumina: Soroki.

Katherine: Is it familiar?

Lumina: No.

Katherine: Okay.

And this is only an extraction that we did to be able to create this project.

- They say the day that she got here.

- Yep.

And the boat she came on.

- May 31st, that was just a couple of days ago.

- Yea that's right, it's an anniversary, right?

- Wow.

- And look at the ship's name.

- Almo-- Like, a hundred and... a hundred and two years?

- A hundred and two years, yep.

Yeah, yep.

Yep.

This is actually the ship that she came on.

And it is the Pretoria.

Lumina: Oh my gosh that's a picture of the ship?

Katherine: Yep, yep.

This is called the manifest document, and it was created as the immigrants got to the ports.

So we're gonna blow this up.

Esther Schmuckler is on line fourteen on this manifest, and she arrived on May 31st 1907 in the port of New York out of the port of Hamburg.

It looks like that she's 19 years of age.

This is female, and this is single.

And was she a dressmaker?

It's saying dressmaker was her profession.

- That makes sense, that's why I wanted to wear a dress today.

- Ahh!

Good for you.

- [laughing] - Um, I think she read and wrote not Russian, but Yiddish.

But usually Jewish people did not, they were controlled by Russian.

This is Russian national of Hebrew race and people.

- Esther Schmuckler.

Lise: Katherine has located the information on the record that indicates who would have picked Esther up from the Ellis Island port upon her arrival.

Katherine: I don't know if you can see this, but it’s b, r, i, and l. And it means brother-in-law.

And it looks to me-- - This was her line right here.

- Yep.

And it looks like it's Sam or Saul Rappaport.

- Huh, that's my grandfather's name.

- Really?

- Was Rappaport.

Lise: Census records reveal that Samuel Rappaport had married Esther's sister, Bertha Schmuckler.

- So her brother-in-law picked her up?

- Her br-- Uh, probably coming in to New York.

But they're giving his street address here, and it looks to me like it’s East 7th street here in New York City.

That's New York.

You see this East 7th?

And this is the number: 112.

112th E 7th street, New York.

You know that was the Lower East Side.

Yeah, you could find that same address today.

♪♪ ♪♪ Lise: Lumina is traveling to the first apartment building where Esther would have lived with Bertha and Samuel Rappaport.

It’s located on the outskirts of New York's Lower East Side.

♪♪ Lumina: How old is this building?

Man 1: Probably 100?

Lumina: Because my grandmother, my great-grandmother Esther came over to Ellis Island on the ship 102 years ago.

Man 1: This is it.

And this is actually an older-style apartment, so this is probably what it looked like, close to what it looked like back then.

- This is it?

Man 1: It's the only one in the building that's still got the loft and this style.

Lumina: So do you think that that's the way that it was when she first got here?

Man 1: Pretty much.

This is pretty much how these apartments worked.

Lumina: Can I do this?

Man 1: Yeah.

Lumina: Wow.

So people slept up here?

Man 1: Yup.

I guess to compensate for the lack of space.

- And then they just sat on the floor down there, and that's the kitchen?

Oh my gosh.

Is this the little teeny tiny baby bathroom?

[click] The little baby bathroom!

This is intense.

It's like living on a boat.

Man 1 and Lumina: [laughing] - I can touch without moving my feet.

[clatter] [tap] [tap] Oh sorry.

Thank you I appreciate it.

I really appreciate it.

Man 1: No problem.

Lumina: Her name was Esther Schmuckler.

- What nationality?

- Um, Russian Jew.

- Nice.

- Yeah.

Lise: At the beginning of the 20th century, New York's Lower East Side was considered the center of the country's garment industry.

70% of all women's clothing in the nation was manufactured here by Jewish immigrants living in overcrowded tenement buildings.

To get an idea of what living in a tenement community was like, Lumina is stopping by The Tenement Museum of the Lower East Side located on Orchard Street.

She's meeting with Sarah Lidvin, an interpreter at the museum.

- This building was a first stop for immigrants.

This was not a place that you wanted to stay.

And it sounds like if your family was already on East 7th street?

Is that where?

- I guess so.

- In the, in the village?

- Yeah.

Sarah: Then they had probably started out somewhere closer to this and moved their way up.

This was the ideal.

You move in here because it’s close to Ellis Island, it’s close to the, the port.

You know, you just start walking 'cause the ferry drops you off in Battery Park, and you end up in this neighborhood, and you find people who speak your language, and you find, you know, people from your town, and you start getting set up.

Actually I have a picture if you want to see of what this neighborhood looked like in 1898.

Lumina: Wow.

Is this this street?

- This is this street.

This is Orchard Street in 1898.

Lumina: It’s kind of possible that one of my relatives, my great-grandmother or her husband or one of the Rappaports is in this picture.

Sarah: It's possible.

Lise: Lumina is being shown an apartment that illustrates what life was like for an immigrant family who had lived there, the Lavines.

Although this is not the lifestyle Esther would've led when she arrived in New York, It is giving Lumina an idea of how dressmakers operated prior to the advent of sweatshops where Esther would have worked.

Sarah: Harris Lavine, he found a job working as a contractor in a garment shop, which is a similar thing to what your great-grandma did.

Lumina: Yeah, she was a dressmaker.

Sarah: She was a dressmaker, as was he as we can see here.

Lumina: Wow, that's a beautiful dress.

Sarah: The dress that we have-- Lumina: I want that dress.

- Well, if you were around in the 1890s, you too could've had it.

Here's a picture of an advertisement of this dress from 1890.

But it was a really tricky life.

Just imagine mounds of fabric here.

The lady who would've sat here was called the finisher, and she would have been sitting often on a pile of clothes.

And so you're working as hard as you can, fabric dust is flying, and you start coughing.

And then eventually if you cough enough, you start coughing up blood.

Lumina: This is making me think again of how my great grandmother and her husband, my great-grandfather, actually they bought a farm out in Upstate New York and moved out to a farm, and I was kind of wondering why would you leave Manhattan for a farm out in the country.

It makes sense when you see, like, the space and the dank conditions why the emphasis of fresh air would be huge.

Sarah: It was huge!

♪♪ Lise: The capital of Jewish America at the turn of the century was New York's Lower East Side.

By 1900, this district was packed with more than 700 people per acre, making it the most crowded neighborhood on the planet.

♪♪ Lumina is meeting with local historian, Rebecca Kobrin to get an idea of what it would have been like for Esther and Isidor to live within walking distance of the vibrant Jewish community of the Lower East Side during the early 20th century.

Rebecca: We're gonna now go look at some buildings that were probably really important to your grandparents.

So this building behind us, if you just don't look at the Chinese, what does it say at the top?

- Up here?

- Yep.

Lumina: Ind.

Kletzker Brotherly and Association?

Rebecca: Yep-- Both: Aid Association.

Lumina: Ind.

Kletzker Brotherly Aid Association.

- And when was it established?

- 1892.

- Okay.

- Wow.

Rebecca: So these, these types of buildings-- Lumina: And then there's Chinese along the bottom.

That's great!

- That's, uh, New York!

- You see the... Yeah the, the layers of history.

- Exactly.

In immigrant neighborhoods, very rarely do people totally raze buildings and build new ones 'cause they can't afford it.

So they just put, as you can see right here, Chinese right on top.

This is a funeral home.

- Oh.

- So what it was in 1892 was something called a landsmanschaften.

- Landsmanschaften.

Landsman is a... a Jewish person?

- No, p-- Lands is a person-- Uh, you got a person, a person from your land, where you're from.

- From where you're from.

So yeah, a person that-- - From the place where you're born.

- --same kind of person as you, okay.

- From the, the-- - From your homeland.

- Yes, from your homeland, but even more specific the place you were born.

It could be a city or a town.

And schaften is just organization.

- A landsmanschaften.

♪♪ Lise: Landsmanschaftens were mutual aid societies offering important communal services such as burial arrangements, relief for the poor, and most importantly, assistance with transitioning Jewish immigrants from the old world to new.

It's highly possible that Esther would have associated with a landsmanschaften dedicated to her home community.

Due to the high concentration of people, the Lower East Side struggled with basic sanitation.

- In 1902, 19-- even 1910, there were no cars, there were horses.

And according to the New York sanitation department survey in 1910, they cleaned off 60,000 gallons of urine off the street.

From horses.

So it smelled.

All right?

It was, it was not... fragrant.

So you know it gets-- for you to feel what it was like to live on the Lower East Side.

Lise: Rebecca is ending her tour with Lumina at the Eldridge Street Synagogue Museum.

The synagogue was built in 1887 and served as a special religious place for Eastern Europeans of Jewish descent.

There's a strong likelihood that both Esther and Isidor would have attended High Holiday celebrations at Eldridge.

♪♪ Amy Stein Milford, deputy director of the museum, is taking Lumina on a tour of the synagogue.

♪♪ Amy: If you look up there, you'll see the Ten Commandments.

Um, in front of the Ten Commandments is a light.

Um, that's called the ner tamid, or eternal light, and that's something that you'll find in every synagogue you go to around the world.

Um, and that represents God's eternal presence.

So that is a light that is always supposed to be on.

Lumina: My father named me Lumina Infinite.

Amy: Right, infinite-- Both: Light.

- Some, some of the same symbolism I think.

He told me it comes from Judaism.

- Wow.

This was a place for celebration, so for weddings and other bar mitzvahs, for other kinds of major celebrations.

So, um, people who wouldn't necessarily worship here on a regular basis would come here for a wedding, or for a bar mitzvah, or for some kind of very special occasions.

Lumina: Yesterday I found out that my great-grandmother's maiden name is Schmuckler.

It was probably the most disappointing thing that I've discovered since I began this journey.

- Okay so-- - I'm still kind of dealing with that.

- To, to, to hopefully make you feel a little better, when I went to Munich, my maiden name is Stein, and there was this store called Schmuck and Stein.

Um, and I thought why, why Schmuck and Stein?

I had the same-- But schmuck is, like, a, a valuable stone, and, and stein literally means rock or stone.

So it was a jewelry store.

And Schmuck, the, the, the derivation of the word schmuck, for what it is today, is sort of like the treasure, or the sort of the great thing.

So, so perhaps-- Lumina: The jewel.

- The jewel, exactly.

Lumina: Okay.

- So.

Lumina: At one point it meant jewel.

- It meant jewel.

- Okay.

So then Schmuckler... - Yeah, in fact, perhaps they were in the jewelry trade, or they were jewels of people.

- Considered to be jewels.

[laughs] ♪♪ Amy: Um, This is actually my favorite place to be, really, in the sanctuary, in the women's balcony.

Um, so men and women sat separately in a traditional Orthodox synagogue.

And that is not the case for all synagogues, but certainly for Orthodox synagogues.

But I love it up here 'cause you can really get up close with the building and really see it in a more intimate way.

And we have some great oral histories.

We have some great stories of, um, people who worshipped here and women who have memories of being up here.

And, you know, we think of this synagogue as so beautiful and grand, but, but a lot of it was communal as well, and people who had similar values coming together and meeting together and being together.

I think you feel that most, that sort of practiced religion, up in the women's balcony, how religion actually manifested.

In terms of the way an Orthodox service was conducted, it was really the men who led the service.

Women, though, were the ones who were transmitting the religion.

Um, and they were so important, and continue to be so today, I think, in terms of transmission.

You know, it's in the home, it's through those traditions, the, the Friday night candle lighting, um, through the keeping of the, the Laws of Kashrut, keeping a kosher home.

All of those lived daily traditions is really what the women would be doing.

And this building is obviously a grand symbol of tradition.

It's this proud declaration of Jewish identity in America.

Um, but when you're up here, and it is so peaceful and so quiet, I think you, you kind of get to think about that more daily life and what the role of the women was.

Lise: At the age of 13, while living with her surrogate family, Lumina was baptized into a Christian faith.

She's now curious about the ramifications of this decision as she explores her Jewish heritage.

- I want to investigate Judaism in practice now as opposed to just in theory, and I want to go and participate at synagogues, and I want to be a part of the Jewish community as much as I can as a Christian.

Actually something I read that, that hurt a lot was, um, that a Jew converting to Christianity is like murdering a Jew, and I hadn't ever been explained that or understood that when I made that decision as a young girl, and then to come to it later was really, it was actually really hard.

Um, but now that I’m older and I'd like to investigate Judaism, but I don't necessarily want to sacrifice my Christian practice, can I tell people when I go to synagogue that I'm Christian or am I not gonna be allowed to be in the synagogue?

- Any religion today in America where you have so many different cultures bumping up against one another.

You have organizations that are about interfaith, uh, movements and, um, certainly Judaism has that as well, so I think there are probably those types of organizations that would be very helpful in terms of, you know, exploring Jewish culture and life and religion and tradition while being respectful of your desire to also maintain the religion that you, you know, were brought up in.

It’s a great spectrum.

Both: [chuckling] - Um, there, there is tremendous diversity, and if you seek, I think you'll find, so.

- Hm.

♪♪ I’m excited about who I get to be in the world, now that I've gone on this journey.

I'm really excited to embrace being my great-granddaughter-- My great-grandmother's d-- granddaughter.

I'm really excited to be Jewish.

I'm really excited to be an East Coast girl from New York.

I'm really excited... even about being a Schmuckler.

[laughs] Um, and I do feel an, an overwhelming sense of pride in my heritage that I wanted to feel but I didn't know if I had a right to feel previously.

So it is like receiving a gift, and it's really amazing to me that, um... these things belong to me in the way that they do.

And, um, even just what happened yesterday meeting more members of my extended family and seeing my grandmother again.

It's almost like they're being born.

It's almost like reverse birth because I didn't know them before, so they're becoming people to me all of the sudden, and it's like having people born.

It's a very joyful process, and, um, I'd love to keep doing it.

I, I've seen a lot of images here in the synagogue that I'd really love to use in my artwork.

And something really exciting to me was discovering concentric circles in the stained glass here.

It's, like, blowing my mind because, um, I've been painting concentric circles in my artwork, and it really has a deep resonance as far as, um, entanglement of, of objects that have been separated, people that have been separated, how they can be entangled and still affect each other over a long distance is represented by these concentric circles.

And it is such a beautiful metaphor for family.

And I was already painting connection in my original paintings, and now I have this very graphic symbol of this concept.

♪♪ ♪♪ Lise: Before leaving New York, Lumina is wandering along the same Lower East side streets that her great-grandparents, Esther and Isidor, would have walked.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ - So, the question that began was is family worth the struggle?

[birds chirping] I think family is a struggle.

[chuckles] Family is a struggle like painting is a struggle, but I don't know that it’s a beautiful painting unless you worked hard on it.

I don't know if it’s really a painting, a poignant painting, unless you really put everything you had into it.

I don't know if anything is worth doing unless it’s difficult, so, you know, I don't know that it would be as interesting if it wasn't a struggle.

If it was-- if it was easy, it would probably-- it wouldn't matter so much.

♪♪ - Some time has passed since you did this journey.

Has it changed you?

- Yes, um, this journey definitely changed me.

I feel just, you know, I think more comfortable in my skin.

I'm a Gershfield, and I know what that means and, and what a journey that took for me to get here and, and what it means to be a Gershfield, Schmuckler.

I can even hold my head high when I say that I’m a Schmuckler and a Rappaport.

Um, and my feeling about the disassembled family that was kind of scattered-- Lise: Yeah, the puzzle pieces.

- is much more cohesive now.

I understand why people made the decisions that they made.

It’s something I read about once actually that you can't just ask your parents why they treated you the way that they did, but you need to find out how they were treated and then how their parents were treated because it goes generationally for a lot of generations.

You know, it’s like I think going back four generations is really what you need to understand your childhood, really.

Lise: I totally agree with you, and I love that you found what you were looking for.

Has your family life changed with your biological family particularly?

- Yeah, it has.

Lise: Tell me.

- Well, when I first got back, nobody was really that thrilled about it.

I was like, Hey, I’m back in America, and we're gonna be a family, and they were, like, you know, like, my first painting.

Um, we weren't comfortable with each other.

And my parents actually gave me a ride to the airport to come here, and, um, they tucked some money in my hand and asked me if I needed a ride back, and my mother actually said something to me, um, right before I got out of the car, and she said, "We're starting to melt, and I want you to know that."

She said, "The ice is melting, and we're here, and we want to be with you."

And it's an amazing feeling.

It's... Lise: What did that-- Yes, what did that feel like?

- Um, it's-- Lise: Had you felt it before?

- Yeah, I'd felt touches of this feeling of what a family is, and it’s a very beautiful feeling, and it’s something I went on this journey to look for.

That, that feeling that you belong somewhere and that your life has a purpose and that there's so many people that care about you and that have been living towards your life happening and that your life has meaning and a purpose and that you're connected, that you're not just this speck, but that you're part of something so much bigger than, than just you, and it’s-- Yeah, it's a beautiful feeling that I keep feeling more and more often so I’m, I'm really glad that I came back even though it doesn't have all the advantages that I had before.

I got my nails done, and I had new shoes, and I had everything I wanted materially in Korea.

I, I really did, but something I learned from the Korean people was how important family is.

They're so tight in their families, and that comes first, and I was looking for that in my life, and, and I have it.

I have it so much more now.

Like, really, honestly I, I have it so much more fully.

Lise: I can feel it from you just from the first part of our conversation and watching your journey and being here now.

I see Anne in you.

Do you feel her in you?

Do you see aspects of her that are you?

Lumina: Yeah.

In fact, I was painting a painting, um, about-- Lise: [feigned shock] What, painting a painting?

- I was painting a painting about the people that I encountered and the women in my family that I learned about through this journey, and I was painting photographs of the-- my grandmother and my great-grandmother and my mother as children so that we were each at the same stage of life talking about how we were contemporaries, and as I painted each of them and had to look so carefully at the lines in their face, um, I sta-- I saw little things like the way that my eyes slant at the sides or the slant of my lip, the curve of my nose, the way that my jaw is.

I, I know where-- why it’s this way.

I, I'm this way on purpose, and it, and it has a history and a significance, and I can live in it and enjoy it and know that so many other people share this, this experience too.

And I almost, you know, got a nose job actually when I was in Korea, and um-- Lise: Really?

- Yeah!

And today when I was telling someone about that, I, I thought, Wow, I would never do that now.

I...

I-- This is family-- This nose has come a long way.

[laughs] - I love it.

Did anyone else in your family ever choose to do that?

Is that what inspired it?

Lumina: Yeah, other people have, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it’s just common now.

Lise: Sure.

- If your nose is less than straight, then-- Lise: You have a beautiful nose and beautiful everything else.

I want to talk about your painting further because you brought a piece with you, and-- Lumina: I did, I brought it.

Lise: these are the women, these are the powerhouses behind you-- Lumina: Yeah!

Lise: buoying you up.

Lumina: Yeah.

- Talk me through this beautiful painting.

I see, I see Anne.

Lumina: Yeah, Anne is in there four times.

Can you find four of them?

Lise: Well, the first one I really recognized.

She looks like when she was the mayor.

Lise: Bottom center.

Lumian: Yes, exactly.

That's actually one of her publicity photos when she was running.

Isn't it great?

Lise: And I see her at the, um-- Lumina: Side here.

- at the hospital with you.

- Yes, exactly.

That's a photo from the hospital when she had her eyes open.

Lise: Aww, which you love her eyes.

Lumina: Yes, she's so beautiful.

Lise: I think that-- Is that your mother up above her slightly?

Or is that-- - Right here in black and white beside the Anne mayor?

Yes, that's my l-- my mother when she was a little girl.

Lise: Okay, so then beside her is another Anne?

Lumina: Yes, that's Anne as a mother's age.

And then Esther above that.

I think they were about the same age there.

And then I’m at the same age there.

So I wanted to explore that we all are experiencing the same thing.

Even though they did it before me, we're all having the same experience, and they've been through it.

And also I want to acknowledge that even though they're my grandparents, or, or even though my parents were my parents, they were making decisions with the kind of minds that are like mine.

They didn't know everything about their lives, and they didn't know everything about the world.

They were just 30 years old, and I-- Lise: Doing the best they could in the moment.

- Yeah.

And I’m not perfect yet, and I won't be perfect even when I’m as old as they are, but I’m looking forward to the day that I am a grandmother and the legacy that I'll have behind and the children that will have been born into the world and how much this will have been added to.

And then we're in the ocean, um, right about where you would see Manhattan from Ellis Island.

So that would be, like, a-- possibly a view that Esther had when she first got to the United States looking at her new, her new zone and her new area.

And she traveled across the ocean to come home, and I felt very much like I was doing that when I came home from Korea.

I was coming across the ocean to a place that was supposed to be home, the East Coast and my biological family, but it didn't feel necessarily like home.

I had to create that, and Esther had to as well.

Lise: The courage it takes.

You must have connected with that.

Lumina: Mm-hm.

- The fortitude.

Lumina: Just-- Yeah, just to go into a new place, a place where, you know, it's a struggle.

It's a struggle, and you have to go into this crazy wild place, and you have to carve out what you want from it and fight for, for what you want and what you believe in, and um... Lise: You're a beautiful artist, and I love-- there's nothing better than having an artist describe their work to you.

- Yeah, I agree.

- Because the depth is extraordinary.

And having seen your journey and seeing this, I feel like I'm a part of these women as well.

I love that you and Anne have the same chin.

Do you see yourself in Anne?

It's beautiful.

- It's a great chin.

And the circles, can you see the concentric circles that began the painting?

Lumina: This is the one at the top of the show that you were starting.

Lumina: Yes, at the beginning, I was just painting the concentric circles, not knowing what this journey was gonna entail, and then discovered the circles again in the synagogue and then kept them here as I brought everyone else into it, and-- Lise: You do this for a living.

Can people find you and have you paint their ancestors for them?

Lumina: Yes, I have a website and I-- - Very good to know.

That's a gift.

Lumina: Yeah!

I love painting families.

- I want to go back to the question for you.

Have you answered the question, am I a career woman, or am I mother?

Are you still asking that question in your life?

Where do you stand on that?

- Thanks for asking that.

Um, actually just had a very deep conversation with my significant other about what my role would be if we were gonna have children and, um, if I would work.

And I was raised in a very conservative family where I was taught that women stay home and raise children, and they don't work.

And I've always really resonated with that because I wanted to be with my children, and I wanted to be with my family, and I was searching for family.

Um, and as we discussed it, I-- I was very adamant on that point, but he was telling me something, and he said, You know, I want my children to have a mother who's a full human being and who has so much to offer them, and I want th-- her to be a role model to them and to not just live her life through them.

And I also really resonate with that because here I am so inspired by my grandmother's work and so inspired by my own mother's work and the things that she studied and the paths that she took and my great-grandmother as well, so I think it’s important for me to explore my talents and to share them with the world and to contribute to the world at the same time as maintaining my focus.

I think to come home from a job that I don't care about that I’m just working money-- for the money is not, uh, that's not gonna happen in my life because I don't want other people to raise my kids while I do something that doesn't matter.

But if there's something that I can do that will also add to their lives that they will be inspired by, that they will be happy to participate in, they can travel wi-- around the world with me, and, and they can participate with me, and I'll set an example for them.

Lise: It sounds like you're definitely taking your family history and propelling it into the future in a healthier way.

Maybe it's a little grayer than you thought, not just the black and white.

Lumina Infinite Gershfield.

Thank you so much for sharing your light on us.

- No problem.

- Thank you for watching.

Please join us next time for another episode of The Generations Project.

♪♪