When Emiliano Edelman’s life is shattered by a terrorist’s bomb that destroys Buenos Aires’ Jewish community centre it sparks his quest to find family who fled from Eastern Europe to Canada decades earlier. Moments after arriving at the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, an explosion throws Emiliano from an elevator and he wakes up in the hospital, his girlfriend missing. Unable to cope with the aftermath of the bombing, he decides to leave Argentina, and by chance encounters visitors from Winnipeg who encourage him to move there. When Emiliano announces his plan to his family, his grandfather recalls that they have family in Canada, although he knows little about them. But Emiliano’s background in history gives him the tools he needs to begin his exploration. Armed with two Yiddish names and considerable optimism, Emiliano travels to Winnipeg, combing archives, questioning elderly residents and reading row upon row of tombstones. He follows the family as it travelled from Bessarabia and split into Argentinian and Canadian branches. Although he grieves for his girlfriend, Lia, he finds that genealogy fills a gap in his life and when he meets Naomi, who shows him around Winnipeg, the stage is set for another revelation. With common sense, dogged determination and more than a little luck, he ultimately finds his cousins in the least likely place.
When Emiliano Edelman’s life is shattered by a terrorist’s bomb that destroys Buenos Aires’ Jewish community centre it sparks his quest to find family who fled from Eastern Europe to Canada decades earlier. Moments after arriving at the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, an explosion throws Emiliano from an elevator and he wakes up in the hospital, his girlfriend missing. Unable to cope with the aftermath of the bombing, he decides to leave Argentina, and by chance encounters visitors from Winnipeg who encourage him to move there. When Emiliano announces his plan to his family, his grandfather recalls that they have family in Canada, although he knows little about them. But Emiliano’s background in history gives him the tools he needs to begin his exploration. Armed with two Yiddish names and considerable optimism, Emiliano travels to Winnipeg, combing archives, questioning elderly residents and reading row upon row of tombstones. He follows the family as it travelled from Bessarabia and split into Argentinian and Canadian branches. Although he grieves for his girlfriend, Lia, he finds that genealogy fills a gap in his life and when he meets Naomi, who shows him around Winnipeg, the stage is set for another revelation. With common sense, dogged determination and more than a little luck, he ultimately finds his cousins in the least likely place.