This photographic essay, “Eli’s Town,” was exhibited in 2017 at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education in Portland and published the next year in the online edition of the Jewish cultural magazine Moment, co-founded by Eli Wiesel.
In early 2017 I conceived of the idea of traveling to Eastern Europe to photograph the place where my Jewish grandfather and namesake Eli (pronounced “Ellie”), who died the year before I was born, had come from. At the time, my wife and I were awaiting the birth of our first grandchild, and there was something compelling about linking family past to future. After letting the notion sit for a while, I booted up my computer on a cold morning in Vermont to see what I could learn about my grandfather.