Iasi, one of the most gracious cities in all of Romania, has been famed throughout Europe since the mid-fifteenth century. It is pronounced Yash.

Soon afterwards, a number of Jewish families from all over Europe started arriving in Iasi. They found it to be a safe and welcoming community.

Yes, through the years there were Pogroms that brought much harm and killings upon this ever-growing Jewish community, but, on the whole, Iasi provided a pleasant homeland for all.

Several Jewish doctors begot much fame as being superb practitioners of their trade. Wealthy people with a variety of illnesses from all of the nearby countries flocked to Iasi for their services.

Small businesses and agriculture were the prime occupations for Jews. Some of the more ambitious became vintners for the grapes and, therefore, the wines were quite good.

As early as the mid-sixteen hundreds, Iasi had become a regrouping place for people who were trying to reach Eretz Yisrael. Many of these travelers found Iasi to be a good place to live in and thus the Jewish population slowly grew in size.

The beginnings of our family started when one Jewish couple surfaced in Spain early in the Second Century. They were treated as the lowest of people by the Spanish people and even their fellow Jews who had preceded them in this new land.

They were called by all as 'gente sin valor' which in Spanish means people without worth. From there the name Sinvalor evolved and later the 'vitz' was added by a particularly cruel Spaniard who wanted all to know that this group was just another bunch of worthless Jews.

Through the years, no one bothered to alter this slur of a name. In time, it was held as a proud symbol of how they had survived the vilification it implied.

Like all Jews, they clung to a life that was filled with harassment, suffocating taxation or just plain slaughtering. But somehow they survived and became of the same value as any Jew in hate-ridden Spain.

In the 1400's a new law called the Alhambra Decree was enacted. It had the strong backing of Queen Isabella. The law all but guaranteed total expulsion or death to any Jew living in Spain.

Now Sinvalorvitz is hardly a noted name, but in those years it carried great weight because of a Jew named Don Asser Sinvalorvitz. The story of this man was passed down from generation to generation.

If there was a leader of the Sephardic Jews in those troubled times in Spain, it was Don Asser. This outspoken, but brilliant, man was listened to by both Jew and Christian alike.

Even Queen Isabella felt kindly towards this little Jew. That affection lasted for a brief period but when he rose to scream against her favored edict, the Alhambra Decree, and seemed to be gaining support against it, by Christian as well as Jew, she issued a simple order.

"This Sinvalorvitz bothers me. His rallying against our Alhambra Decree is bothersome. I can tolerate his fellow Jews screaming out against it, but he seems to be gaining some support from non-Jews as well. Put him and all his family to death as soon as viable."

One of the favored officials in the Queen's inner circle owed much to Don Asser. As a long term friend, he would not allow his friend and family to face any such edict.

Within a week, over forty eight members of the Sinvalorvitz family, led by Don Asser, were gone from Spain. They quietly settled in various European countries. It was only in Romania that they kept their Spanish surname.

Some four hundred years later, it was decreed by my great grandfather that the world was ready again for the name Don Asser to be carried by a proud Jewish boy. Oddly enough this new Don Asser turned into a carbon copy of the original carrier of that name.

Asser Sinvalorvitz, my grandfather, was that man. He died long before I was born, and I would not have known anything about the man if it were not for the fact that the man I idolized, my Poppa, Schmuel Sinvalorvitz, never stopped telling me story after story of his hero.

First of all he was five feet ten inches tall. This made him akin to a giant among a family where five feet and two or three inches was considered respectable.

Yes, he spent a good deal of time on his father's stature, but he spent much more time telling us how all in Iasi bowed to the intellect and moral strength to Iasi's Don Asser.

Don Asser spent his life moving a small men's store that he had inherited up to the stature of an important Iasi business. So did the stature of the 'Tall One.'

To all intents he was the leader of all the Jews in Iasi and when some trying matter arose in Iasi, Asser Sinvalorvitz played a major role in settling the problem.

His stature rose when he wisely purchased a number of farm lands that produced superb grapes. His wines became among the most popular in Iasi and his wealth soared.

Very few people in Iasi sported two such widely successful businesses.

Schmuel, a rather skinny and short man adored Asser and made certain that each of his children knew everything about that uniquely grand man. His favorite quote about his father was, "Dat vas a mensch. A guta neshuma."

Which in English meant a grand man in soul and heart. "He took over der famila's zer klaine men's clothing store ven he vas stil a boy and made it into a richtik business. Dat vine business vas an equal success. He made everytink about Iasi vonderful for us."

May I introduce myself? My name is Dieter Sinvalorvitz. I was born in the good old U. S. of A., but my Poppa and Momma were born in Iasi, Romania.

It didn't take me many years before I started complaining about my dreadful first name and the fact that I wasn't given a middle name. I eventually did change my first name but my Poppa squashed any thought of a middle name when he simply said, "Ve are poor, and ve can't afford a middle numen."

That didn't make any sense to me, but Poppa was Poppa, so I just accepted his edict.

Of course, I couldn't understand how they were so rich in Iasi and so poor in New York.

"Vas it his fault dat tings vent crazy In Iasi? Foist they took away his farms. Den dey stopped buying in our store and ven dey started killing off the Jews he led us to America. He died too soon to make America like the old Iasi but to me he vas alvays mine Groiser Roes.'

Should you have had any trouble interpreting the above, may I offer the following advice, look at it as being the best efforts of a terribly insecure group of people trying to communicate wiTheach other.

Much in this book will feature a combination of Yiddish and tortured English. As my people aged, the Yiddish slowly disappeared.

For the longest time a 'w' was almost always pronounced as a 'v.' They were more comfortable with a 'd' than a 't' and 'that' was spoken as 'dat.'

Thus 'where we were born' would emerge as 'ver ve vor gueoirenboren.'

My parents were quite proud of how quickly they had picked up this foreign tongue. No one ever told them otherwise.

If needed, I suggest you might first enjoy trying to decipher the meanings yourself or use the lexicon decipher I've placed at the end of the book.

Yes, there are also translations scattered throughout the book which might also bring you a chuckle or two.

Be kind to their pathetic attempts to verbally reach out to you. It is not so much that they used different words for they thought they were using 'poifec' English.

The Sinvalorvitz family, led by...