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After World War I, Helen Goldsmith’s Turkish-Jewish grandfather became fascinated by metaphysics and hand reading. In the 1930s, he set up an office at the back of his wife’s stationery shop on the Stubenring in Vienna, where he advised thousands of clients using hand analysis and other metaphysical methods. At first, newspaper articles praised her grandfather’s work, but after the Anschluss, articles went from being laudatory to calling him a dangerous quack. After the war, his children, safe in the U.S., never shared stories about his unusual profession. In this talk, Helen will share her journey of discovery and some of the resources and methods that helped her learn about and solve the mysteries of her family.
This one-hour program, conducted over Zoom, is free for members. This is one of the many activities that is a benefit of JGSGW membership. Instructions for joining the online meeting will be placed under Meeting Info & Links in the Members Only Files. (These files become visible on this website after members sign in.) Nonmembers may register to attend for a fee of $5.
Speaker: Helen Goldsmith is a retired university counselor and administrator. In 2017 after her uncle’s death, she discovered a trove of family papers that he had kept but never shared. The documents span more than a century and originate from Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Israel, and the United States. In January of 2021, she began a daily blog, posting items from this archive, giving them context, and recording her journey to discover her family history. The blog can be found on her website: https://www.womanwithamessage.com/. Her quest to give voice to her ancestors has led her to learn traditional genealogical research techniques and to study hand analysis, the occupation her grandfather pursued.
