A sense of belonging

The BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? saw celebrities like Lesley Garratt and Vic Reeves exploring their past. The accompanying book taught us how to trace our family history and spawned a national obsession.

One writer who has traced his heritage and published it, is Guardian and Jewish Chronicle columnist Jonathan Freedland. His recently published Jacob's Gift A Journey Into the Heart of Belonging, tells the story of his Jewish ancestors, who lived variously in England and Israel.

Jacob is the name of his first child, now three years old there is also 11-month-old Sam who he has with wife Sarah Peters, a Channel 4 documentary producer.

The gift is what Freedland passed on to his son when he had him circumcised, according to Jewish tradition, when he was only a few days old.

"My starting point was this whole question of identity what it means to say, I belong to this group, rather than that group'. I got the idea in the period following 9/11 and I had just had Jacob. When Jacob entered into the covenant of Abraham circumcision it's like you're enrolling in something. Beyond just doing something because it was traditional I thought, What have I just done?' I knew that it was important, and what it entailed, but I couldn't be precise.

"The book tells three family stories which had a big influence on me, and reflect something conscious in the Jewish experience."

While it all sounds very Judeo-centric Freedland stresses that his book should be accessible to all who read it.

"Jewish readers will find it interesting because it tells the story of families like them," he said. "But I think it does have a wider resonance. Non-Jewish people will find something of interest to anyone who knows immigrants. If you are interested in Jews, like if you were to marry into a Jewish family, it explains who they are."

Freedland, who grew up in Elstree, now lives in Stoke Newington the original Jewish area of London, and where all the ancestors written about in Jacob's Gift lived at one time or another.

The 38-year-old journalist mostly writes political articles and his first book, Bring Home the Revolution, is about how Britain should be run more like America.

But he initially wanted to be a fiction writer and with its direct speech and mythical narrative, Jacob's Gift reads a bit like an epic adventure.

And while Freedland said he had to fill in some of the blanks', he did feel a responsibility to write the truth. Luckily there were letters from which he could source quotes, like one from his great-uncle Nathan Mindel which said, the Orient has captured me', after arriving in Israel.

The rest he got through word of mouth. Freedland said he was at pains to interview his family, and scrutinise them in the same way that he might interview a Labour spokesman'.

Sometimes it was difficult to bring up sensitive family episodes, like the time Nathan's son was involved with a right-wing terrorist group.

"They are all delighted on one level to have the family story being told. On the other hand it's a sensitive business wading into family stories," he said ruefully.

While he spent 18 months officially researching, in reality it has been a life-long work. At 17, he recorded an interview with his great uncle Mick Mindel, a Zionist, who died years later. "He was a great mentor of mine who I loved hugely," he says.

Another big influence was Freedland's father, a journalist, who no doubt inspired him to be a writer after giving up on the idea of being a politician.

When he left school (University College School in Hampstead), he went to Israel for a year with a Jewish youth movement, Habonim Dror, to work on a kibbutz. It was here he developed his interest in the Middle East, as well as from his strong Zionist heritage, which he has documented in Jacob's Gift.

After Oxford's Wadham College, where he was editor of Cherwell, the student newspaper, Freedland managed to secure a job as a cub reporter on a new paper called the Sunday Correspondent which was launched in 1989 and folded in 1990.

"I read they were starting up, so I told them if they were a new newspaper they needed new reporters. It was sheer chutzpah," he said.

After that, he won a traineeship at the BBC, where he was required to work as a pool reporter' on shows including the News Breakfast and the World Today.

When he won a fellowship at the Washington Post as a reporter he jumped at the chance, and it was there where he developed a great love for the States, calling the experience life-changing, and counting his interview with Bill Clinton as one his career highlights.

"My friends tease me about being such a Clinton fan," he laughs. "He is one of the great figures. He is so charismatic. Interviewing him is as if you have been able to say you heard Sinatra sing in the Forties."

But you get the feeling that Freedland's main love is, of course, the family. "I am concentrating 100 per cent on family life," he said when asked about his hobbies.

"Having children and a wife, it's wonderful and life changing, but it's hugely demanding. I've just come back from a 17-hour flight from South Africa.

"While everyone else was reading or watching a film I did none of those things apart from maybe watching a bit of Toy Story with Jacob," he said.

"I can't remember what used to happen without children but it's all great."

u Jacob's Gift A Journey Into the Heart of Belonging, by Jonathan Freedland, published by Hamish Hamilton is £16.99 and available at all good bookstores. Jonathan will be talking about his book at a session at Joseph's Bookstore, Finchley Road, Temple Fortune, on Sunday at 7pm. Entry is £10, redeemable against purchasing Freedland's book. For information call 020 8731 7575 He will also be chairing a talk on the Jewish question at The Jewish Book Week on March 12 at 8.30pm at the Royal National Hotel, Bedford Way, Bloomsbury. For details call 0870 060 1798.