Dershowitz Family Saga written by my 96 year old uncle

The following was published by Greer Cashman in the Jerusalem Post today:

■ WHEN ONE hears the name Dershowitz, the automatic association is with Alan Dershowitz, the famous lawyer, civil libertarian and outspoken advocate for Israel. But he is not the only Dershowitz who has carved his place in history.

His uncle Rabbi Professor Zecharia Dor-Shav (Dershowitz) recently published a 480-page book on The Dershowitz Family Saga, which traces significant contemporary events for world Jewry from the perspective of one immigrant family: their Galician origins and 19th-century lifestyle; their Americanization; the tribulations they endured in the Goldene Medina; the tragedy of World War II and the Holocaust; the establishment of the State of Israel; the fall of Communism; and the mass immigrations to Israel from Russia and Ethiopia.

The book, with a foreword by Alan Dershowitz, takes the reader from Pilzno in Poland to New York’s Lower East Side, and from Brooklyn to Jerusalem. The aliyah of many family members before, during and after the Six Day War led to their involvement in the absorption of Ethiopian, Soviet, and former Crypto-Jews into the nascent state.

The intellectual and spiritual heritage of the Dershowitz family is an American-Israeli success story, parts of which are common to other American Jewish families that will easily identify with what they read.

The author’s grandfather established the first hassidic congregation in Brooklyn; his father conceived Yeshiva Torah Vodaath; a brother served on the European front, but his gun ended up with the Hagana.

The first member of the family to move to Israel did so more than 70 years ago, and now more than 250 family members can be found in Israel.

The author of the book has lived in Israel for more than half a century. Ordained an Orthodox rabbi in 1950, he served as a congregation rabbi, public school teacher, and Hebrew school principal for a number of years. After completing his PhD at New York University in 1966, he took an appointment as professor of education at Long Island University. He was director of the Eliezer Stern Institute for Research and Advancement in Religious Education for several years, and served as chairman of the School of Education.

A registered psychologist and member of the Israel Psychological Association as well as the Israel Education Association, he resides in Jerusalem.