Book Review: Hidden Inheritance by Heidi B. Neumark

About:
Hidden Inheritance: Family Secrets, Memory, and Faith by Heidi B. Neumark is a non-fiction book in which the author traces her roots. Ms. Neumark is a pastor in the Bronx and wrote several books, as well as articles previously.

 

• 240 pages
• Publisher: Abingdon Press; Gld edition (October 6, 2015)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1501808311

My rat­ing for Hidden Inheritance — 4
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Thoughts:
Hidden Inheritance: Family Secrets, Memory, and Faith by Heidi B. Neumark serves as a Lutheran pastor in The Bronx, while doing a genealogy search she discovered that her father was Jewish. As Ms. Neumark digs through her past, she discovered that some of her relatives got baptized to escape the Nazi death machine.

I found the book to be poignant and honest. The author reveals that the religion she loves, also symbolizes her family’s loss of another faith. The storytelling is not in linear fashion, which I didn’t mind at all.

I do think Ms. Neumark can, should and is qualified to explore the issues of religion she brought up, but didn’t answer some of them. For example, she mentions that she feels part of the Jewish community, even as a Lutheran pastor, but doesn’t expand on this very interesting point.

The author also inserts many passages from the Bible, which I thought was overdone and with little context. While she may be familiar with the intricacies of the texts, I could have done without them, or with a bit more commentary how the texts relate to her situation.

While the book is marketed as “Christian”, I think anyone would enjoy it. It is an well written, intelligent book with a riveting story which I’m glad was told.

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Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I got this book for free.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account