By Carol Lessure
When Clare Kinberg, former AARC Beit Sefer director and editor of the Washtenaw Jewish News (WJN), unearthed an 80-year-old family secret about her estranged Aunt Rose, she started a journey to learn as much as she could about someone that her father and his siblings had kept deeply hidden. As she explored the history of her relative, Clare initiated a series of monthly WJN articles between 2019 and 2022 that delved into how her aunt’s interracial marriage led to community ostracization and the history of both her and her husband.
Clare wrote in the WJN series: On the day in 2016 when I found Rose’s death certificate on the internet, I learned she had died at the age of 76 in a hospital in South Bend, Indiana. Her last residential address was in Vandalia, Michigan,about two hours directly west of my home in Ypsilanti where I live with my wife Patti and our two adopted African American daughters. Vandalia was founded by abolitionist Quakers and several free Black families, some of whom had been manumitted prior to the Civil War.
I found my Aunt Rose’s unmarked grave in a small church cemetery among some of the oldest Black residents of Cass County. The first time I stood near Rose’s burial plot, I resolved to write a book about her.
Indeed, Clare has written a memoir that follows the journey of Rose and her husband to their decision to settle in Michigan while exploring the Kinberg family journey from Eastern Europe and how this couple’s history and backgrounds illustrate the lasting impacts of both racism and antisemitism. You can read more about the original series of articles in an earlier blog post here.
“By the Waters of Paradise- An American Story of Racism and Rupture in a Jewish Family” is available for pre-order via Wayne State University Press. Be among the first to get the book when it is published in October 2025, and use the discount code, RKIN30, during checkout to get a 30% discount
