b'final mattersThe Week I Found About 30 Cousins and a EuropeanFootball Team to SupportHitting the Jewish genealogy jackpotBY DONNY LEVITIwiththe TottenhamHotspurFoot- be credited to the DNA of my paternal great-grandfather, a never expected to be so excited to receive a care pack-age of socks. But these were no ordinary socks. Get- man named Harry Putter. Dont get my kids started because ting them sent through the Royal Mail is far coolertheyve built a compelling argument that my dads side is full than those mundane Amazon delivery trucks. wizard. After all, we are related to Harry Putter, the Jewish AdornedHarry Potter. Sounds like some juicy fan fiction to me.ball Club insignia, these purple and black beautiesOld family photos aside, there is a much more powerful were sent by my newly discovered British cousinsreason that Nicole went on this recent quest. After Hamas who were making a strong case for my becoming a sup- terrorist attack on Israel last October, I experienced a great porter of the Premier League club. Immediately persuad- sense of loneliness. The action of searching for other Jew-ed, I scanned for the next match and set a reminder onish relatives around the globe was uplifting. To actually my phone. 10 a.m. Saturday. Wear the socks, I wrote.find many of them has been a great panacea for the pain of Although theres more to say about cousin Ruth andLast Thanksgiving, my dad gave me thisthese months and our current days.her family, I must start by crediting my wife for scrub- photo of his family taken at Ventnor: He sitsBefore cousin Ruth sent that care package, we were surrounded by his mother, Rose; his sister bing multiple websites and continents for my bloodline.Judy; and his father, Donald. gettingtoknoweachotheroveremail.Herhandsome Jewish genealogy is particularly tricky, so Nicole armed21-year-old twin boys brought a great sense of comfort herself with ancestry.com, myheritage.com, and several generous folks who trans- to me. We are thrilled that well be able to meet her son Jacob this coming June lated Hebrew and Polish for us. Before we knew it, we were added to WhatsAppwhen he visits the States.chat groups and swapping family photos with fourth and fifth cousins in ParisSo back to my great-grandfather Harry Putter. Nicole had to untangle the and Rio de Janeiro. challenge of spelling variants and Americanized names as well as ship manifests The inaugural moment for these discoveries took place last Thanksgivingand naturalization records to locate my cousins in Rio because their last name is when my dad pulled out a hulking collection of photos that had been buried inButter. The Brazilian Butters quickly connected us to the French Butters. In no storage for years. Suddenly, the table was covered with slices of cranberry walnuttime, the Putters were introduced to dozens of Butters and their many children. pie and never-before-seen pictures of my grandfather and namesake DonaldWhat a difference a single letter makes!Levit, who died decades before I was born. My dad handed me a photo ofWhen it comes to the DNA search, the Brazilian Butters arent kidding around. his family of four: Grandpa Donald, Grandma Rose, my dad, and his sister,Theyve assembled incredible family trees to show to us their oodles of cousins. Judy, riding one of those classic rolling chairs on the boardwalk at Ventnor CityBut most significantly, the Butter sense of humor aligns nicely with the Levit sense Beach. As the photos kept pouring out, I real- of humor. After Nicole mentioned that Im a huge Yankee fan, cousin Mendel ized how little I knew about my dads ancestors. replied, Well, thats not in the DNA because I find baseball boring. Fair enough.Thanks to a distant cousin in Colorado, myHeres whats not boring: the incredible photos they sent to us of Carnival hap-moms side has been successfully traced back topening in Rio. Wed get nightly reports of the traditions filled with a lot of fascinat-Vitebsk Guberniya, a piece of the Russian Em- ing history. Cousin David spoke about the bate-bola costume traditions they used pire when my ancestors left in the 1890s andto see when they visited their grandmother in the Jacarepagu neighborhood in now part of Belarus. The empire was less thanRio. Cousins Anna and Arthur chimed in with a Friday evening Shabbat Shalom. hospitable to the Jews, to say the least, and manyIve always been jealous of those huge extended family gatherings with dozens landed in the United States. of people sporting kitschy T-shirts to mark the occasion. Im dreaming up one of My dads side, however, turned out to be athose reunions thatll take place in Rio. Im already designing the Butter-Putter bit more far flung. Mix in a little Poland here,graphic, which will surely include phrases in Portuguese, French, Hebrew and a little Austria there, pepper with some UkraineEnglish. My kids will enthusiastically gather quotes for their Harry Putter fan Looks like my grandfather andand Germany, and you get the idea. But the keyfiction. We better hire a good translator. namesake Donald was a base-ball fan, as am I. that unlocked the door to so many relatives canDonny Levit is a writer, reporter, theater director and Spurs supporter. COYS!46/ matters magazine / spring 2024'