JL;DR SUMMARY Olivia Haynie reflects on how a Russian samovar in her family connects her to her Jewish ancestry and the story of her great-great-grandmother, Rivka Silberberg, who fled from the Pale of Settlement to the United States before World War I. This samovar, a relic of late 19th and early 20th-century Russian Jewish immigrant culture, symbolizes not only comfort and familiarity but also the forced migration and survival choices of her ancestors. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.