Overview

A family secret uncovered after eighty years inspires a personal reckoning with racism. In 2016, Clare Kinberg discovered her estranged Aunt Rose's death certificate on the internet. What followed was an unearthing of contradictions of what ""family"" means in a segregated United States. In the 1930s, Rose, an Ashkenazi Jewish woman, married Zebedee Arnwine, an African American man. The Arnwines faced a multitude of barriers due to their interracial marriage, and Rose faced familial and community ostracization for her choice. Her siblings, including Kinberg's father, kept her existence a secret from their children while building a strong sense of family and reinforcing the segregation between Jewish and Black communities. Some eighty years later, Kinberg, whose wife and daughters are descendants of the African diaspora, traced the life and legacy of her aunt. This masterful memoir weaves the genealogical and historical journeys of Rose and Zebedee with discussion of Rose and Kinberg's Jewish ancestry in Romania and Ukraine and investigates their mutual decisions to settle their interracial families in Michigan. By the Waters of Paradise is a riveting family history that paints a startling portrait of racism and antisemitism and the lasting effects across generations.

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9780814352755

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Clare Kinberg is the publisher and editor of the Washtenaw Jewish News, a monthly newspaper in southeast Michigan and from 1989-2011 was editor of the international literary/political biannual Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal. For many years she worked as a librarian and teacher and as director of religious schools in various Jewish denominations. Kinberg has been an organizer in the lesbian, feminist, and anti-war movements for more than 40 years. Her writing on Jewish culture, the Jewish Labor Bund, and Israel/Palestine has appeared in Tablet, Sh'ma, Bridges, and Detroit Jewish News, and many other publications.

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