Letters to America

WHEN: Thursday, November 5th, 2026 - 7:00 pm (US/Eastern)
WHERE: Zoom

Shlomo Vorobeichic was born in Lahoisk, near Minsk, in 1882, one of eight children. When his seven siblings emigrated to America and settled in and around Boston, taking their widowed mother with them, Shlomo stayed behind in Vilna, writing lengthy letters in Yiddish to his siblings in the US. Joseph, the youngest brother, settled in Providence after completing his medical studies and lovingly saved all of Shlomo’s letters. Although Shlomo, his wife, and two children perished in the Holocaust, two adult children survived, and one of them, Moï Ver, became a well-regarded photographer. In the 1990s, Moï Ver’s daughter Lilian Falk translated her grandfather’s letters into English, allowing us a vivid view of Vilna in the early twentieth century and transmitting Shlomo’s nostalgia for his childhood in Lahoisk. This is the story of Shlomo’s letters to America.

Jonathan Falk is a retired chemistry teacher, Jewish community activist, and family genealogist based in Long Beach, California. He is the great-grandson of Shlomo Vorobeichic.