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In New York we found and met an amazing variety of Stotlands. A few of them were simply long, lost relatives — people Gerry knew about but had not seen for a long time. But the majority were recent immigrations from the ex-USSR who just a year ago Gerry didn't know even existed.

A week after our arrival in NYC, we met a truly long-lost relative of Gerry’s, Iosif Stotland, seen here with his wife, Anna. Iosif's mother and Gerry's grandmother were sisters so Gerry is the son of Iosif's first cousin. While in Israel at the beginning of the year, Gerry renewed contact with his cousin Dvorah Komisar and her sister and brother and family. They unlocked for us the mystery of the village in Ukraine where Gerry’s and Dvorah’s mothers were born. They also told us that their mother's younger brother, their uncle Iosif, was in New York City.

As soon as we got settled into our apartment, we started searching web phonebooks for his name and were surprised to find what seemed a match almost immediately. Our first call got us an answering machine with a message in Russian. Expecting that she would have to speak Russian, Jan had made preparations, and slowly enunciating her uncertain Russian, she said that Gerry was the grandson of Iosif’s aunt Ette, and that we would like to see him and would call back. (Remember, we couldn't use the phone in the apartment and we didn't have our own cellphone yet.) Our second call reached Iosif and he was nothing short of astounded. There were some communication problems because Iosif is a little hard of hearing (not too surprising for an 88-year old) and Jan's understanding of spoken Russian was much less than perfect. But by dint of repetition, we made a date to see them the following Tuesday afternoon.

Before we arrived we had no idea how warm the welcome would be and how much there would be to talk about. We thought given their ages and expected language difficulties we would stay an hour. Instead we were treated to a meal and they very reluctantly let us leave around 6 p.m. We shared the feeling; we only dragged ourselves off because we were very late for a dinner apointment with Susan and Jemma. Luckily for us, Susan is a good friend and quickly forgave us.

From our conversation that day we learned that Iosif had always known that his aunt Ette was in Chicago and remembers the family receiving care packages from them when he was young (in the 1920's). During the Stalinist years, however, contact between the two families was lost and not renewed until after the fall of the Berlin wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union. In the early nineties, Iosif made his first trip out of the new Ukraine to visit his sister Eda and her family, the Komisars in Israel. (And from them, of course, we learned of his existence.) He considered emigrating to Israel, but was concerned about the insecurity of life there. Then, by chance, his son-in-law managed to settle in the United States. A year later his (step)daughter followed her husband to New York with their son. Another year later and Iosif and his (second) wife also came. They were followed by Iosif's chidren from his first wife and his second wife Anna's son Michael and all of their families.

A couple of weeks later, we returned to Iosif and Anna's little flat to meet his chidren, Samuel and Vera, and her children, Faina and Michael. At the same time, we introduced them to Jeff Stotland, grandson of another sibling of Iosif's mother. It was a very "Russian" occasion. Lots of hugs and smiles and tears, lots of wonderful Russian-Jewish food and lots of memories.

Before we left the NY area we also got to know Faina's family: husband Simon, son Vlad, and daughter and son-in-law Evelina and David; as well as Samuel's wife Valentina, his daughter and son-in-law Anna and Sergei, and their little girl Alexandra. There are now three generations of Stotlands newly arrived in the USA and as far as we can judge getting along fine.

And last but by no means least, we also got to know Jeff Stotland, the son of Gerry's first cousin Harold, and Jeff's wife of one year Mira. It is almost as strange to have relatives you know about but haven't met as it is to find relatives you have never known about. Jeff and Mira live in Brooklyn. He is a business broker and she is studying to be a medical doctor.