‘Stories Carry’ a Rebbetzin’s Unsanitized Memoir

For Dena Schusterman, executive director of Intown Jewish Preschool, the road to publishing “Stories Carry” began with a story that, in a sense, had been stolen.

The story concerned her father and his years as a Chabad emissary in Berkeley, Calif. When the story was eventually told publicly, his name had been left out. He had been edited out of his own history.

“I remember thinking, “Wait. I need to tell my father’s stories,” said Schusterman. That moment became the seed for “Stories Carry,” a memoir built around 30-plus stories and anecdotes drawn from family history and those of her own life. It took eight years to move from the first idea to publication.

There were other nudges along the way. Schusterman gave an ELI Talk at the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta about the power of what she calls “unsanitized Jewish storytelling.”

Then she shared her desire to write her father’s stories with Atlanta novelist Zoe Fishman, who told her, “You’re not too young to write a memoir.”

The result is a work that moves across generations and continents. Beginning in pre-World War II Russia and Poland, Dena’s grandmother was taken to a concentration camp, and the memoir continues through Brooklyn, San Francisco, Berkeley, Albuquerque, and Los Angeles before arriving in Atlanta in 2020.

The stories are Jewish, but Schusterman labels them as universal. “If you have a family, you will relate. Beneath the specifically Jewish experiences are questions that cross religious and cultural boundaries: Who am I? Where do I belong? What do I inherit from my family? What do I pass on? And how do we make peace with the stories we come from?”

At the center of the book is a theme of shaping one’s own life: belonging without having to conform. Shusterman shared, “More than anything, I hope readers leave with the feeling that you don’t have to fit in to belong, That has been one of the deepest themes of my own life, and it’s really at the heart of “Stories Carry.”

The memoir also contains stories that are difficult to forget because they are poignant and simply hard to believe. One involves her father, then a young and struggling Chabad rabbi, being offered a fundraising concert by Barbra Streisand. He turned her down! Another story is considerably more comic. In the 1970s, Berkeley Chabad was apparently growing more than Judaism on its roof. Police eventually stormed the Chabad house after someone discovered cannabis plants. Dena’s 5-year-old sister had been watering them with the best of intentions while their parents were clueless.

Schusterman muses over the personal nature of self-exposition. “Writing is my therapy, my me time, my self-care — basically, my everything that has nothing to do with work or family obligations,” she said. The family has responded warmly. Her parents and siblings thanked her for taking them “back to the good old days.”

Finding a publisher was another chapter in the journey. Initially, she received a contract from a hybrid publisher and asked an attorney at Welborn Law to review it. His response was blunt, “Mrs. Schusterman, I don’t want to see you sign this contract.”

He then recommended Mercer University Press and made an introduction. The manuscript still had to go through Mercer’s full vetting process. Ultimately, they said “yes.” Mercer has a longstanding commitment to Georgia authors and their stories, making the publication of a memoir by a Georgia rebbetzin (rabbi’s wife) feel like a natural fit.

What comes next?

“I’m already thinking a novel inspired by the very real, ridiculous, magical, miraculous, and sometimes incredibly difficult and comical world of shidduch (matchmaking) dating. Because I now know how long a book takes to write. By the time it’s finished, maybe I’ll … with G-d’s help … have married off all my children.”

Schusterman will appear at the Book Festival of the MJCCA, and will be featured at the Decatur Book Festival, although she will not attend that event because it falls on Simchat Torah. Additional appearances are planned at JCCs, Chabads, synagogues and book clubs.

Her invitation is simple: “So invite me!”

“Stories Carry” is available through Mercer University Press and Amazon and will soon be available in local bookstores.