Family lore is sometimes reliable. With reference to Ukraine, I am happy to report that some of my ancestors escaped persecution from the Czar’s pogroms, which happened well before the Nazi invasion during the Holocaust. With the enthusiastic collaboration of some Ukrainians with Nazi invaders, the genocide of Jews there was nearly complete.

My maternal grandfather, Louis Pesach Balinky, escaped and lived in Kingston, among other places, where he and my Hungarian grandmother, Celeste, raised a large family. As immigrants who spoke Russian, Hungarian, Hebrew and Yiddish, the Jewish Esperanto, but not English, with zero financial resources and no social safety net, they suffered from unstable, exploitative employment and housing.

The few memories that they shared with me about the old country were bitter. There was no sentimental desire to go home to Kiev. Nobody from our family who stayed was alive to visit. I didn’t know about my family’s history in Kingston until an old photo surfaced a few months ago from my Aunt Rose’s personal archives, and an elder cousin told me about the coincidence of my moving to our family’s old hometown.

Somehow, despite his miserable early years being exploited as a child laborer, Grandpa Louis had a cheerful, whimsical, breezy personality. He was a family favorite. He always wore a smile, had a twinkle in his blue eyes, and was eager to lend a helping hand. He never grew taller than five-foot-nothing which made him approachable to children. I inherited his tropical shirts and fancy sheer socks, which I wore with pride while I was growing near to his size in elementary school.

Because he had to work from age seven, he had no formal education. He did, however, teach himself English by studying the Bible. He used to say thee and thou, and did not allow anyone to refer to his wife, my grandmother Celeste as “she.” If they did, he would say, “and whom pray tell is she?” Although they did not belong to a temple, anyone who reached across the table for food before grace would get his hand whacked with a long-handled wooden spoon, or so legend has it.

They had seven children, several of whom graduated from Kingston High School. The four boys were all strapping, six-foot-tall athletes. Go figure. My Uncle Sigmund, the family hero, was a star athlete and later a highly decorated tank commander in World War II. He and his elder brother Sam were drafted as men in their 30s. Perhaps there is a record of their local athletic achievements in the 1920s. Legend has it that he, and his brothers Sam and Alfred were all “four [sport] lettermen” although I doubt it about Alfred, who had a rheumatic heart. His much younger sister, my mother,

Charlotte went to school in Kingston too, but graduated from James Madison High after the family relocated to Brooklyn during the Depression. Kingstonians can still take some pride in her achievements as a pioneer in women’s liberation and public health. She was the director of Planned Parenthood, mentored Dr. Ruth, and in 1973 when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, she established the first three legal abortion clinics in New York. But I digress.

Louis was a tailor and invented left-handed pinking shears. He also tried — without success — to corner the market in horseradish before Passover. Peanut farming did not pan out either. He could fix anything, but he was not a successful businessman. His friend Louis Simon needed a partner to develop their product, but Grandpa Louis had no capital to invest. He only needed $500 for half share, or so the story goes. He declined the offer and never made a cent from the invention of Simonize car polish.

Grandpa Louis never even owned a car until a few years before he passed from pneumonia in Florida. Somehow he had acquired a green 1953 Studebaker. It was a humdinger. My Aunt Rose, who inherited the car, drove it into the ground. When she was 99, she shared a sweet memory of her time in Kingston. She told me that when they were growing up, she used to row across the Hudson River while her big brother Al leaned back and puffed on a cigar.

My friend Richard’s father, Irwin Corey, was a professional comedian. Richard inherited his father’s sense of humor. In discussing the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, we considered the eager collaborations of many with Nazis in Poland and France and the exodus of Jews from Europe. Some Ukrainians were most enthusiastic in rounding up their Jewish neighbors, stealing their property, murdering some and sending the rest to Nazi concentration camps.

Richard came up with a caustic joke. “I don’t hate Ukrainians. As a group, they’re alright, but as individuals, I hate every single one of them.”

My knowledge regarding the current deplorable events in the Ukraine is limited to the sometimes-reliable news that I glean from propaganda on the internet. I am categorically against war, and am sure that Jesus would join me in wishing that the fighting stops before Ukraine resembles Iraq, in ruins.

Regarding the 100,000 Ukrainian refugees to whom our country has opened its borders, I applaud it as a great humanitarian gesture, the kind of acceptance that has made a proud tradition and reputation for our great country as a haven for those in need. I have to wonder why the same humanity is not extended to, among many others, the Haitians and the Latinos who need us too.