Susan Weinberg

I am an artist, author and genealogist with a deep interest in Jewish heritage. This interest is reflected in my artwork and in my recent book We Spoke Jewish.

My travels have taken me to throughout Eastern Europe to family shtetls and archives.

10/20/2024

So we finally get to the part of moving that I really like. As an artist and a visual person, hanging artwork signifies that I’m home. I take great pleasure in my visual surroundings and the interaction of artwork with each other. It’s a bit like the stories of toys coming to life at night, these seemingly inanimate objects that converse. When it works, they have wonderful conversations, a bit like throwing a very successful party and I’m the host. Read more at

One of the first things we did to make the new space ours, was to put out a rug that I have had through two prior homes. Consistent with my ...

10/14/2024

There is a process to claiming a new space, to making it your own. We embraced that process by renovating, painting and re-carpeting our new home. So many decisions to make as we tried to picture what this space would ultimately look like. Read more at

We went through the purchase of our new home half sleepwalking. Were we really doing this? I couldn’t conceive of how our belongings would f...

10/01/2024

We’ve been immersed in a move which has taken over our lives. Moving is not for the faint of heart, at least after you’ve been in a home for many years with lots of storage space that absorbs all those unnecessary things that fill your life. It is a process with many elements, selecting a new home, renovating it to your taste, creating a home with artwork, and disposing of what you don’t need. I’m good at step three and atrocious at step four. We are however, very pleased with the outcome and love our new home. Read more at

It has been a quiet year for blog writing. Also reading, painting and genealogy research. Many of the activities that bring me pleasure were...

03/08/2024

I do a lot of speaking on genealogy topics and frequently speak about immigration as I find the liminal state between one state of being and another especially interesting. In keeping with the liminal nature of changing identities, I have moved into the subject of names which were particularly fluid for Jewish immigrants who had multiple names even before they came to the U.S. and tried on yet more identities. Read more at

For those involved in Jewish genealogy, the fluidity of given names often presents a brick wall. You can't find the record if you don't know...

01/07/2024

Each year I write a summary of books that spoke to me throughout the year. I often have a long list, but am hard-pressed to capture them many months later. My process is to write of the ones that had sufficient force to stay with me as I consider what gave them staying power. Read more at

Each year I write a summary of some of the books that spoke to me throughout the year. By the end of the year I have a long list, but I am o...

12/28/2023

This has been a tough year, an “annus horribilis” as once termed by Queen Elizabeth. It has been a year that encompassed losses of people who were dear to me. One expected, of which I have previously written, and one sudden and still unimaginable, the death of my sister. I remember when my parents reached an age where they were going to a lot of funerals. I still had enough naiveté to not think of it as in the realm of my experience, certainly not affecting the people I loved. My sister’s sudden passing was the death-knell of those illusions. And so I enter a new stage, shorn of parents and siblings, the solo keeper of the memories of my family of origin. The loss of a fellow memory keeper is just one of the many layers of what my sister’s death means for me. Read more at

It always begins with a phone call, those things that rock your world. My niece, brave soul, had taken on the task of passing on the news of...

09/24/2023

This week I lost a dear friend, Dora Eiger Zaidenweber, who was a bit of a second mother to me. Yesterday I attended the funeral and was struck by the community that she had created around her and the cross connections that had developed between many of us. It has also made me reflect on the ability to move through hardships to find meaning. Dora could have taught a master class in that and in fact she did for those who were paying attention. For thirteen years we met almost every week, it was a standing commitment and out of it developed a deep friendship and connection that informed and enriched my life. Read more at

I learned the news as I drove to a nature center to meet friends for a walk, a phone call telling me that my dear friend Dora Eiger Zaidenwe...

08/28/2023

So how do you deal with milestone birthdays? I have one a few months out and it is causing me to reflect on the path I’ve taken. I recently had an opportunity to hear myself explore those issues at the age of thirty-four before I knew how the ensuing decades would unfold. An old video surfaced through an odd string of events, the first lengthy video interview that I had ever done. Looking back through time, I felt a bit maternal towards former self, proud of this creature who felt quite separate from me, yet connected. Read more at

As I approach a milestone birthday, I realize that one of the advantages of getting older is that you have a roadmap to your own evolution....

07/23/2023

I frequently stumble over careers that speak to me and then have to remind myself that part of my life has ended. There are just so many interesting things to do in the world. My latest missed career would require me to be fluent in Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic among other languages so it is not likely to happen in this lifetime. As I prepare for a Jewish Genealogy conference in London, I have been learning about the Cairo Genizah and am fascinated with its story, the stories it contains and the stories of those who have made it their life’s work. Read more at

As a genealogist, I am a keeper of stuff. I would hazard a guess that most genealogists are pack rats, as they know that gems are hidden in ...

05/24/2023

Last weekend was Art-a-Whirl, the largest open studio event in the United States. For artists, it means being in our studios for 18 hours over three days while thousands of people stream through. While it is a big commitment of time and energy, it always reminds me of why I make art. I paint about story and I need those visitors to affirm that I am telling a story that they resonate with. Those stories build connections that are quite exhilarating. Read more at

Each year, Northeast Minneapolis hosts Art-a-Whirl, the largest open studio event in the country. Thousands of people come through studios ...

05/15/2023

I have always had strong friendships with women of my mother’s generation. I attribute it to having had the good fortune to have a wonderful relationship with my mother which I then continue to recreate. At 99, my friend Dora, a quite remarkable woman, is one of the few of those friendships remaining. On Mother’s Day, I reflect on the amazing cross-generational friendships in which I have participated. With many of these friends, I have recorded their life story and feel especially fortunate to have had the opportunity to step into someone else’s life experience. Read more at:

Every Mother's Day, I reflect on the many mothers who have influenced my life. My own mother has been gone now for almost eight years and ye...

01/08/2023

I’ve spent the past year absorbed with genealogy work, both for clients and organizations. Much fell aside to make room for this, including the volume of my reading. A byproduct of this was that I chose my reading with heightened care and while the number declined, the quality rose. Enough so that I couldn’t be satisfied with one blog on my reading, but needed a second one to highlight some extraordinary books. Read more at

So here's round two of favorite reading from 2022. Some seemed to pair conceptually even though quite different in content. One story explor...

12/29/2022

Since 2010, I have written a blog each year on my favorite reading. There are clear themes that seem to emerge and often they surprise me. This year I finally wised up and wrote a paragraph about my favorite books right after I read them rather than trying to recall the fine points at year-end. Some reading comes out of book groups, but often a friend will make a wonderful recommendation that I am most grateful for. Hopefully something that I write of will affect you similarly. Read more at

Since 2010, I have compiled my favorite books that I read each year. It allows me to trace the topics that have intrigued me over time. I ...

10/12/2022

Have you ever visited a place from your past and felt a sense of dislocation, familiar, yet unfamiliar? I recently returned to the town I grew up in for a high school reunion, the 50th delayed by one year. The entire visit felt like a layering of time, past and present. Read more at

When my mother was in her final years, I often traveled to spend time with her. She lived in Peoria, the town where I grew up, still in my c...

09/05/2022

Have you ever considered how one action connects to another, introducing us to new people and allowing us to make our small contribution in the larger world? I took a first step 12 years ago when I volunteered to create a website for the Polish town my grandfather came from. It has led me down interesting roads I could never have anticipated. Read more at

I often think of my life as a bit of a Rube Goldberg creation. I set something in motion, as if I were sending a marble spinning on its path...

07/18/2022

For the past ten years I have participated in the Jewish Artists’ Lab as both an artist and the Resident Writer. It has deepened my knowledge while serving as a creative engine for my artwork. I have been assisting with an upcoming retrospective of the lab that will be at the Tychman Shapiro Gallery at the Sabes JCC from August 22nd - October 23rd with an opening on September 15th. In the process of working with the retrospective, I find myself considering my own journey within the lab. It has served as an important gateway for me in entering a community of artists within the larger Jewish community. Read more at:

For the past ten years, I've participated in a Jewish Artists' Lab. Recently I was invited to assist with a retrospective show for the lab a...

05/10/2022

When my father passed away, I found myself in his study looking for notes on family history. I began to find snippets in his tiny handwriting scribbled on old envelopes and scraps of paper. Recently I’ve been doing research for a person where we had little detail to work with and I remembered those old envelopes. “Do you have anything from a parent with scraps of family history information jotted on it?” I asked, describing my personal experience. Much to my surprise he produced an envelope. Solving a family history puzzle is an iterative process that builds off a thread. And on that envelope I discovered not only an entry for purchase of thread, but also a statement that allowed me to follow the thread to solve the puzzle of his family history. Read more at:

When my father died, I was the first one to tackle his office. My father loved information. If something interested him, it ended up in a gr...

03/26/2022

Today there is word that missiles struck near Lviv, Ukraine. In 2011 we visited Lviv in route to my ancestral town. We wandered the cobblestone streets and central plazas of this historic city. The violent attack on this country seems like something from a primitive time, as if an ancient barbarian wandered into the wrong era. And it feels personal. I can picture its streets today as well as the streets that my grandparents once walked.Read more at:

View of Kamenetz Podolsk 2011 Over recent weeks, I’ve watched the unfolding events in Ukraine with horror. I traveled there in 2011 to the t...

03/02/2022

While I began doing genealogy for my own family, over time my focus has shifted to other people’s families. I fell into genealogy consulting a bit by accident and soon realized that it combined both my love of puzzles and story. I often adopt a family as my own and appreciate the many new directions this pursuit has taken me. Still, there are those situations where I have to carve out a new path into unfamiliar territory. Read more at:

When I first began doing genealogy, I signed up to join a group of Jewish genealogists in Utah for a week at the Family History Library. F...

02/07/2022

Have you tested your DNA? I did both mine and my father’s years ago and for many years went no further. It was only when I received an email from a woman asking about a close relationship between her husband’s DNA and my father’s that I ventured into learning the nuances to solve this family puzzle. Read more at

One of the areas of genealogy that attracts many people is DNA. While I am deep down the rabbit hole of genealogy research, I hesitated f...

01/02/2022

In the course of a year I spend a lot of time reading and for the past 11 years, I have done a recap in this blog of both my favorites and some of the most thought-provoking books. They are not always the same. I find I often read around a theme although I may be unaware of it until I look back. This year the theme seems to be on what it means to be human and the responsibilities that go with it. You can find past book posts on Suggested Books at the top of my blog. Read more at

Each year I review what I’ve read in the course of the year, some newly published and some just newly discovered by me. I look for concentr...

12/14/2021

Have you ever stumbled across a stash of old letters that transported you back in time? Perhaps they felt both strangely distant and yet oddly familiar. As we are contemplating a move, I’ve been sorting through the many relics of the past and uncovered just such a stash, forcing me to contemplate the juncture between past and present. Read more at

As winter approaches, I begin to retreat from the world into my own private hibernation. Summer and fall saw me gathering with vaccinated ...

10/28/2021

On St. Patrick’s Day this year, I called my brother to wish him a Happy Birthday. “You haven’t caught up yet,” he noted, referring to my childhood frustration at never catching up to his age, at least at the same time. “It isn’t a good thing if I do!” I had replied. My brother passed away a little over six months after that conversation and I reflect back on that banter with sadness. Our lives were on very different tracks, but as I went through old photo albums, I recaptured the flavor of earlier times. Read more at

I’ve gotten my booster in anticipation of an upcoming flight to Reno. It will be the first time I’ve been on a plane in two years and not fo...

09/13/2021

Have you ever gone to your high school reunion? Thus far I have managed to avoid all of my reunions without a moment of regret. High school was a hurdle I had to get past to get on with my life. And yet, this reunion was a big one and I was wrestling with whether to put in an appearance. Read more at

I was never much of a small talker. That means I flounder a bit when I'm in a big group of people and I have to schmooze. It's not my natura...

08/24/2021

Do you play Words With Friends, Scrabble? I have always been intrigued with puzzles, but especially the lessons that I take from them. Among the many careers not pursued, game theory ranks up there. Puzzles reveal how we approach the world and often flag the areas where we need a different approach, to our game and to our life. Read more at

The summer before I entered high school, I picked up an algebra book from our overflowing bookshelves in my childhood home, always a wonderf...

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Minneapolis, MN
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