FAMILY MATTERS"All Jews share the same history, but every Jewish family has its own story"This book tells the stories of four Jewish families, ancestors of the author, from small towns in Poland to faraway Peru, and, in the case of the author, from Peru to Israel.Mandel tells these stories with deep affection, fine irony, and delightful humor. His pleasant and clear style gives them his unmistakable personal sealThe biographical and autobiographical stories that Mandel tells in this book constitute individual mosaics that, as a whole, give a panoramic picture that covers more than one hundred years and includes personal, family and historical events.The real issue, the true meaning of these family stories, is the tenacious survival of the Jewish people, as evidenced by the Mandel, Korngold, Braun, and Kerszenberg families."Family Matters" illustrates, through the microcosm of four families, the Jewish history of the last hundred years, which includes the tragedy of the Holocaust and the rebirth of an independent Jewish state, 2,000 years after it was destroyed by the Romans.