Descendants of Rajgród: Learning to Forgive

Karen Kaplan tells the story of her father, Arie Kaplan, who after surviving the Holocaust in the forests of Eastern Europe, limped through the rest of his life by lying, cheating, abusing his family and never letting go of his rage. Many years later, her father is on his deathbed and Karen is an unhappy single mother who realizes that she is consumed with a similar feeling of rage. She begins keeping a journal, and in the course of writing about her father, starts to understand that she has inherited his 'survivor mentality' and is at risk of losing sight of ever being content. In sharing her story, Karen Kaplan struggles to do the most challenging thing she's ever done; forgive her father, and let go of the legacy of bitterness and fear that has hovered over the Jewish community following centuries of anti-Semitism.