Lisa Brahin is a Jewish genealogist and writer from New Jersey. Inspired as a young girl by Alex Haley’s ROOTS, she spent many summers audio taping the stories of her grandmother’s traumatic childhood during the 1917-1921 anti-Jewish pogroms in Ukraine. Those tapes were the primary source for her historical family saga, TEARS OVER RUSSIA: A Search for Family and the Legacy of Ukraine’s Pogroms.  

With a lack of previously published sources to turn to, Lisa used her genealogical skills to locate and interview family members and former residents of her grandmother’s shtetl. Curators in four countries assisted her in finding unpublished documents, written in five languages, that would help to validate her grandmother’s tales.  

On Jewishgen.org, the premier website for Jewish genealogy, she is a two-town project coordinator for the international Yizkor Book Project (Holocaust Memorial Book Project). Lisa was named a double town leader for the website’s Ukraine SIG (Special Interest Group) Project, now called the Ukraine Research Division (RD), where she has contributed online articles on the history of her ancestral towns.  

In her spare time, Lisa volunteers her skills in genetic genealogy to assist those searching for unknown birth parents. She has a special interest in helping hidden child Holocaust survivors who are in search of their true identities.  

Lisa hopes that TEARS OVER RUSSIA will inspire continued interest in family history research. She also hopes her book will shine a light on a forgotten and underrepresented period of Jewish history – between the years described in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and SCHINDLER’S LIST – that prefigured the horror that was to come.  

Lisa’s Authors Guild member profile page: https://go.authorsguild.org/members/364  

Photo Credit: Diana P.Lang Photography