Pruning the ‘Yiddisher’ Family Tree
Yidden are unique, and they have created this strange phenomena known as ‘Yiddisher’ tree running…. It starts usually when people meet at Simcha’s. Shul, business etc ….. Within minutes, the room becomes a live genealogy project.
“Wait, are you related to the Levy’s from Glenhazel?” “Your grandmother was a Levine? Then we’re definitely connected!” Somehow, a complete stranger becomes a third cousin by marriage twice removed.(Tz ge tzebete) … A ‘Cuzzie of a Cuzzie’
The Yiddisher family tree is a magnificent thing—but it’s also wildly overgrown. Its branches twist through generations, marriages, friendships, shul communities and shared Bobba’s recipes. We don’t just collect relatives; we seem to adopt them. Every Jewish mother has an “aunt” who isn’t really an aunt, and every child grows up calling half the community Uncle or Aunty.
Perhaps that’s the beauty of it. In a world that often feels disconnected, our instinct is to look for connection first. We prune the family tree not by cutting people off, but by trimming away the confusion until we discover the branch that links us together.
And when the detective work is finally done, someone inevitably smiles and says,
“I knew we were Mishpocha.”
Whether the connection is by blood, marriage or simply belonging, the message is the same: in the Jewish community, family is often much bigger than genetics. It’s a reminder that our strongest roots aren’t only found in our ancestry—they’re found in the relationships we nurture every day.
50 Years ago when I started Stan & pete we had no ‘Komputta’s/Mobile phones and usually on a Monday/Tuesday night we went in pairs in those days to see clients, because if you wanted the business you had to go and see clients at their homes, and we had no Waze and travelled all around the Witwatersrand….Driving to clients, Dennis my partner would always say “No pruning the Yiddisher tree’ …I am not spending more than at most an hour, as some nights we had booked to see 2/3 clients a night…… You sit down and you talk ‘Tagliss’ (the business at hand) and then over a coffee and a ‘Kookie’ the topic widens and you are in the middle of a Groiser pruning exercise……. How many evenings did we not get to the 3rd client, and with no mobiles , called the next morning and apologized……This carried on for yeaarss until we started getting clients to come in and of course we went by ourselves in latter years…..
Pruning the tree, just happens at a moment’s notice and I am sure you have been involved in the practise even if you did not realize it….. Last week I met with a client again, and the first time we met we discovered that John (real name) had done his articles at Eliasov Wolf with my Late Boet, and I work with his niece etc….. This time we discussed schools and he went to Marist Observatory, and that openeded another branch of a big tree….He was in class with my Old Chaver Milton Levin & Gary Perkins….. and the tree just grew……. Not sure why we have this habit of Pruning the family tree BUT……It is a ‘Michiel’………
Comments