Despite growing up with a sense of inferiority about the simplicity of Ashkenazi Ukrainian-Russian cuisine, the author rediscovers the importance of their great grandmother Rosalia's recipes, which were influenced by her Jewish heritage but hidden during the Soviet era.

The Frankfurt Lehrhaus, or Free Jewish House of Learning, was established by Franz Rosenzweig in 1920 as a new model of adult Jewish education for Western Jews who were distant from their Jewish heritage.

Stefan Zweig, a highly-translated and polarizing author in the 1930s, was both envied and criticized by his peers for his success which some saw as a symbol of declining cultural values.