In Germany, COVID-19 postpones the revival of the Jewish Carnival tradition that the Nazis tried to end
Aaron Knappstein, in blue and white tam, watches the Carnival with friends in 2019. (Toby Axelrod)
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(JTA) — Looking over an old family scrapbook, Laura Chanin saw a puzzling photograph of her paternal great-grandfather, Max Solomon, wearing women’s clothes. She had questions.
“What is this? Why is he in drag?” Chanin, a 53-year-old mother of one from California, asked about the experience of several years ago.
The discovery led Chanin, who works at a logo printing business, to discover that Solomon was among the founders of the first Jewish group to officially participate in the Carnival of his native Cologne.