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Tell Me I Belong: A Journey Across Faiths and Generations
In this heart-wrenching memoir by a renowned transplant doctor who grew up without religion, a journey of self-discovery as he uncovers his family's past.
David Weill grew up in New Orleans the only son of a world-famous Jewish pulmonologist and a Southern Baptist mother. Religion was never discussed in his home, and as a young child, Weill always felt something was amiss—that he never quite fit in with either his Christian or Jewish friends. These feelings stayed with him even as he became the head of heart and lung transplant at Stanford University, which lead to two journeys of first, converting to Catholicism, and then embarking on an intense search for his Jewish roots after he discovered his mother had converted.
The author takes the reader on his journey—hiring investigators in Berlin, who found his grandfather’s records of his time imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp; a heart-wrenching trip to Berlin to find his father’s first home—and ultimately does the internal work to define himself.
David Weill grew up in New Orleans the only son of a world-famous Jewish pulmonologist and a Southern Baptist mother. Religion was never discussed in his home, and as a young child, Weill always felt something was amiss—that he never quite fit in with either his Christian or Jewish friends. These feelings stayed with him even as he became the head of heart and lung transplant at Stanford University, which lead to two journeys of first, converting to Catholicism, and then embarking on an intense search for his Jewish roots after he discovered his mother had converted.
The author takes the reader on his journey—hiring investigators in Berlin, who found his grandfather’s records of his time imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp; a heart-wrenching trip to Berlin to find his father’s first home—and ultimately does the internal work to define himself.
276 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 9, 2025
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May 22, 2026
Let me be very brief. I won the copy of "Tell Me I Belong" in Goodreads giveaway, and I did not like this book. I guess it just was not "my type of book".
There was a number of things I found strange. To start with, it was the behavior of David's parents. Since his mother converted to Judaism, not an easy thing to do, it was important to her. But not important enough to teach the values of Judaism to her children. It does not seem like there was at least one conversation mentioned between David's parents and their kids having to do with their faith, religious values, etc. If there was, I apologize and I must have missed it. To leave the decision whether they want to be religiously observant to a child of nine or ten years old, and without any religious upbringing, is a recipe for failure. At this point, religion is nothing to them but additional constraint on playtime. It looks like the parents wanted to prove some point, either to themselves or to their kids, but what did they prove in the end?
David is clearly a high achieving child who grows up to be a perfectionist. Then he realizes that he cannot save all his patients and leaves the medical field, even he is a highly qualified professional and could continue saving at least some lives which might be lost without his intervention. How is this a way out?
David is a tortured soul and finds consolation in the Catholic faith of his wife and children. But apparently there are too many constraints (again!) He researches his ancestors' history and arrives at some vague state where he can adhere to "some" rituals of Judaism but not the others. Convenient? Yes. But not very convincing.
This review is not meant to be personal in any way, and I apologize if it does look personal. I just found it difficult to follow the author on his journey across faiths and generations.
There was a number of things I found strange. To start with, it was the behavior of David's parents. Since his mother converted to Judaism, not an easy thing to do, it was important to her. But not important enough to teach the values of Judaism to her children. It does not seem like there was at least one conversation mentioned between David's parents and their kids having to do with their faith, religious values, etc. If there was, I apologize and I must have missed it. To leave the decision whether they want to be religiously observant to a child of nine or ten years old, and without any religious upbringing, is a recipe for failure. At this point, religion is nothing to them but additional constraint on playtime. It looks like the parents wanted to prove some point, either to themselves or to their kids, but what did they prove in the end?
David is clearly a high achieving child who grows up to be a perfectionist. Then he realizes that he cannot save all his patients and leaves the medical field, even he is a highly qualified professional and could continue saving at least some lives which might be lost without his intervention. How is this a way out?
David is a tortured soul and finds consolation in the Catholic faith of his wife and children. But apparently there are too many constraints (again!) He researches his ancestors' history and arrives at some vague state where he can adhere to "some" rituals of Judaism but not the others. Convenient? Yes. But not very convincing.
This review is not meant to be personal in any way, and I apologize if it does look personal. I just found it difficult to follow the author on his journey across faiths and generations.
December 11, 2025
David Weill is the former Director of the Center for Advanced Lung Disease and Lung and Heart-Lung Transplant Program at Stanford University Medical Center. In 2016, burned out from gruelling work as a transplant surgeon and finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the deaths of his patients, he left clinical practice. He is now both a writer and the Principal of the Weill Consulting Group (in his hometown of New Orleans) which focuses on improving the delivery of pulmonary, ICU, and transplant care.
In the opening pages of his second memoir, Weill observes that growing up as the son of an agnostic Holocaust survivor and a Baptist mother from Selma, Alabama, he did not fit in with either the well-established Jewish community or the aristocratic gentile crowd in New Orleans. He had an identity problem. Humans, he says, like to identify themselves as members of a group, whether it be one based on shared ancestry, culture, and language or a common occupation or interest. For many years, Weill’s identity was based on his being a surgeon—that is, until the insecurity masked by “transplant doctor bravado” could no longer be denied. His beloved father had died and Weill was also experiencing a professional crisis.
In childhood, the author and his two older sisters met individually with their parents who asked them whether they wanted to keep going to synagogue regularly. This was puzzling to the boy, as the family had never gone to synagogue, regularly or irregularly. The children declined religious involvement, and neither Judaism nor Christianity was practised in the home.
As an adult who’d long admired and even envied his Catholic wife’s faith—in which his daughters were also grounded—Weill underwent a year of formal training, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, to become a Catholic himself. He admits that he was interested in exploring the controversies in which the Church had been embroiled—not the least of which was the clerical sexual abuse of children—but these were not mentioned, never mind discussed, during the classes. Overall, I found Weill’s treatment of his Catholic initiation superficial and unsatisfactory. There is no description of his internal intellectual, emotional, or spiritual processing of the information he received. Not having read his first memoir, I don’t know if it was addressed there.
Weill states that although Catholicism helped him in a crunch, it ultimately did not do the trick. He consequently embarked on an intensive quest to learn more about his parents’, and particularly his secular German Jewish father’s, family histories. He read, had a number of his dad’s personal documents translated from German into English, and, most importantly, he travelled: to New York, Selma (Alabama), Berlin, Buchenwald, and his paternal ancestral town, Kippenheim, in southwest Germany. The Weills had lived there from 1390 until 1939, when Nazism changed everything, wiping out most members of the prominent family. He discovered that the German Jewish- American composer Kurt Weill likely used his considerable influence to arrange for his cousin—David Weill’s grandfather, a Buchenwald survivor—and his family to come to America.
Most of Tell Me I Belong concerns Weill’s uncovering his paternal ancestry, which makes for absorbing reading. Along the way, the author also addresses a couple of other interesting topics. For one thing, he talks about some surprising research which reveals that doctors as a group are quite religious. He cites a 2005 survey of two thousand physicians by the University of Chicago, which revealed that “76 percent of doctors believed in God and 59 percent believed in some sort of afterlife. The survey found that 90 percent of doctors in the United States attended religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent of adults in the general population. Fifty-five percent of doctors said their religious beliefs influenced how they practice medicine.”
Another matter Weill considers is inherited trauma, a concept I’m familiar with but sceptical about, as I’m unacquainted with the scientific evidence on which it is based. Weill explains that it is defined as generational “‘unresolved trauma and shame inherited from one’s parents through epigenetic inheritance.’ It is essentially ‘family trauma’ because we inherit it from our parents, just as surely as we inherit things like eye color certainly, but also mannerisms that are not likely to be genetically determined but rather ‘epigenetic,’ or circumstantial inheritance.” He speculates that his perfectionism and his mysterious chronic pain syndrome may be due to inherited trauma.
By the end of the book it is evident that Weill has found his tribe, though it’s not entirely clear how this affects him on a daily basis, practically or psychologically. Does he now attend synagogue regularly? Does he continue to go to church with his wife? He doesn’t say.
Based on what he writes about his response to Hamas’s massacre of 1200 Jews in October 2023, Weill’s having become a member of a tribe has come at a certain cost. The price, as I see it, is the darker side of tribalism—what Merriam-Webster defines as “having or showing strong in-group loyalty and often a negative view of outsiders.” Weill characterizes October 7, 2023 as “an assault on my people, again, on my father and grandfather, on me.”
I acknowledge the intense distress and rage the author felt in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s brutal slaughter of innocents and even in his reaction to a hostile young anti-Israel protestor he met on the Tulane University campus a month or so after the attack. The protestor captured Weill’s attention as he yelled “From the river to the sea [Palestine will be free].” As Laurie Kellman observes in her November 2023 Associated Press article: “Palestinian activists” state that the slogan is “a call for peace and equality after 75 years of Israeli statehood and decades-long, open-ended Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians,” while “Jews hear a clear demand for Israel’s destruction.” Weill was appalled that the protestor’s call for an end to Israel “for the crime of defending itself” and the young man’s claim that “October 7 was a justified attack, given the policies of the Israeli government toward the Palestinians”—what the author sees as “the rationalization of terror”—should be considered “acceptable free speech in 2024.”
The author also expresses distress about the reaction of university communities around the US: “The lack of moral compass was astonishing, the unwillingness or inability to make a clear-eyed assessment of what had just happened astounding,” he writes. “The cognitive dissonance rampant in certain sectors of academia and the contradictions and moral equivalency was startling—and all this before one IDF plane was in the air, before one brigade of ground troops was deployed.” It should be noted that Weill is not accurate here. Israel’s military response to the massacre was swift. The IDF was bombing Gaza before the end of the day on the 7th. Small-scale ground operations started less than a week later, on October 13 , and a full-scale invasion of Gaza commenced on October 27th.
Although his book concludes in April 2025, Weill appears to have made no reassessment of his initial reaction to the situation in Gaza, one which numerous scholars characterize as genocide but which few Holocaust historians are willing to do. As I was completing this book, I recalled Omer Bartov’s July 15, 2025 guest essay for the New York Times, “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.” In it, Bartov, who is considered one of the world’s leading experts on genocide, wrote that having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of his life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and an officer, and spent most of his career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, he reached the painful but “inescapable conclusion . . . that Israel . . . [was] committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”
“Mr. Netanyahu,” Bartov stated, “had urged his citizens to remember ‘what Amalek did to you,’ a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to ‘kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings’ of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting ‘human animals’ and, later, called for ‘total annihilation.’ Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on X that Israel’s task must be ‘erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.’ Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group.”
David Weill is rightly concerned about the trauma Hans, his beloved father, endured in childhood. Hans witnessed his father, the author’s grandfather, dragged away from the family home to be taken to Buchenwald. Would the author, evidently a empathetic person, not also be concerned by what Bartov describes as “an entire generation of children subjected to ongoing military attacks, loss of parents and long-term malnutrition [who] will suffer severe physical and mental repercussions for the rest of their lives” and the “untold additional thousands of chronically ill persons [who] have had little access to hospital care”? Being critical of or opposed to the Israeli government’s actions is not equivalent to anti-Semitism. Having been victims of a terrible genocide does not entitle a nation to cause others to suffer on the scale that the Palestinians have. Over 70,000 have been killed.
I valued and learned from David Weill’s book and I appreciate the privilege of having early access to a copy. I think it is wonderful that he has reconnected with his heritage and feels he has finally come home. Regarding the structure of the book itself: I do not think that his dividing the memoir into four sections was necessary. A chronological telling would’ve been more effective, eliminating some unnecessary repetition. Furthermore, I wished for a deeper more considered psychological processing of the author’s spiritual journey. Most of all, however, I would have liked to see an acknowledgement that there are elements to being a member of a tribe that can potentially be toxic.
In the opening pages of his second memoir, Weill observes that growing up as the son of an agnostic Holocaust survivor and a Baptist mother from Selma, Alabama, he did not fit in with either the well-established Jewish community or the aristocratic gentile crowd in New Orleans. He had an identity problem. Humans, he says, like to identify themselves as members of a group, whether it be one based on shared ancestry, culture, and language or a common occupation or interest. For many years, Weill’s identity was based on his being a surgeon—that is, until the insecurity masked by “transplant doctor bravado” could no longer be denied. His beloved father had died and Weill was also experiencing a professional crisis.
In childhood, the author and his two older sisters met individually with their parents who asked them whether they wanted to keep going to synagogue regularly. This was puzzling to the boy, as the family had never gone to synagogue, regularly or irregularly. The children declined religious involvement, and neither Judaism nor Christianity was practised in the home.
As an adult who’d long admired and even envied his Catholic wife’s faith—in which his daughters were also grounded—Weill underwent a year of formal training, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, to become a Catholic himself. He admits that he was interested in exploring the controversies in which the Church had been embroiled—not the least of which was the clerical sexual abuse of children—but these were not mentioned, never mind discussed, during the classes. Overall, I found Weill’s treatment of his Catholic initiation superficial and unsatisfactory. There is no description of his internal intellectual, emotional, or spiritual processing of the information he received. Not having read his first memoir, I don’t know if it was addressed there.
Weill states that although Catholicism helped him in a crunch, it ultimately did not do the trick. He consequently embarked on an intensive quest to learn more about his parents’, and particularly his secular German Jewish father’s, family histories. He read, had a number of his dad’s personal documents translated from German into English, and, most importantly, he travelled: to New York, Selma (Alabama), Berlin, Buchenwald, and his paternal ancestral town, Kippenheim, in southwest Germany. The Weills had lived there from 1390 until 1939, when Nazism changed everything, wiping out most members of the prominent family. He discovered that the German Jewish- American composer Kurt Weill likely used his considerable influence to arrange for his cousin—David Weill’s grandfather, a Buchenwald survivor—and his family to come to America.
Most of Tell Me I Belong concerns Weill’s uncovering his paternal ancestry, which makes for absorbing reading. Along the way, the author also addresses a couple of other interesting topics. For one thing, he talks about some surprising research which reveals that doctors as a group are quite religious. He cites a 2005 survey of two thousand physicians by the University of Chicago, which revealed that “76 percent of doctors believed in God and 59 percent believed in some sort of afterlife. The survey found that 90 percent of doctors in the United States attended religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent of adults in the general population. Fifty-five percent of doctors said their religious beliefs influenced how they practice medicine.”
Another matter Weill considers is inherited trauma, a concept I’m familiar with but sceptical about, as I’m unacquainted with the scientific evidence on which it is based. Weill explains that it is defined as generational “‘unresolved trauma and shame inherited from one’s parents through epigenetic inheritance.’ It is essentially ‘family trauma’ because we inherit it from our parents, just as surely as we inherit things like eye color certainly, but also mannerisms that are not likely to be genetically determined but rather ‘epigenetic,’ or circumstantial inheritance.” He speculates that his perfectionism and his mysterious chronic pain syndrome may be due to inherited trauma.
By the end of the book it is evident that Weill has found his tribe, though it’s not entirely clear how this affects him on a daily basis, practically or psychologically. Does he now attend synagogue regularly? Does he continue to go to church with his wife? He doesn’t say.
Based on what he writes about his response to Hamas’s massacre of 1200 Jews in October 2023, Weill’s having become a member of a tribe has come at a certain cost. The price, as I see it, is the darker side of tribalism—what Merriam-Webster defines as “having or showing strong in-group loyalty and often a negative view of outsiders.” Weill characterizes October 7, 2023 as “an assault on my people, again, on my father and grandfather, on me.”
I acknowledge the intense distress and rage the author felt in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s brutal slaughter of innocents and even in his reaction to a hostile young anti-Israel protestor he met on the Tulane University campus a month or so after the attack. The protestor captured Weill’s attention as he yelled “From the river to the sea [Palestine will be free].” As Laurie Kellman observes in her November 2023 Associated Press article: “Palestinian activists” state that the slogan is “a call for peace and equality after 75 years of Israeli statehood and decades-long, open-ended Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians,” while “Jews hear a clear demand for Israel’s destruction.” Weill was appalled that the protestor’s call for an end to Israel “for the crime of defending itself” and the young man’s claim that “October 7 was a justified attack, given the policies of the Israeli government toward the Palestinians”—what the author sees as “the rationalization of terror”—should be considered “acceptable free speech in 2024.”
The author also expresses distress about the reaction of university communities around the US: “The lack of moral compass was astonishing, the unwillingness or inability to make a clear-eyed assessment of what had just happened astounding,” he writes. “The cognitive dissonance rampant in certain sectors of academia and the contradictions and moral equivalency was startling—and all this before one IDF plane was in the air, before one brigade of ground troops was deployed.” It should be noted that Weill is not accurate here. Israel’s military response to the massacre was swift. The IDF was bombing Gaza before the end of the day on the 7th. Small-scale ground operations started less than a week later, on October 13 , and a full-scale invasion of Gaza commenced on October 27th.
Although his book concludes in April 2025, Weill appears to have made no reassessment of his initial reaction to the situation in Gaza, one which numerous scholars characterize as genocide but which few Holocaust historians are willing to do. As I was completing this book, I recalled Omer Bartov’s July 15, 2025 guest essay for the New York Times, “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.” In it, Bartov, who is considered one of the world’s leading experts on genocide, wrote that having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of his life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and an officer, and spent most of his career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, he reached the painful but “inescapable conclusion . . . that Israel . . . [was] committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”
“Mr. Netanyahu,” Bartov stated, “had urged his citizens to remember ‘what Amalek did to you,’ a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to ‘kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings’ of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting ‘human animals’ and, later, called for ‘total annihilation.’ Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on X that Israel’s task must be ‘erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.’ Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group.”
David Weill is rightly concerned about the trauma Hans, his beloved father, endured in childhood. Hans witnessed his father, the author’s grandfather, dragged away from the family home to be taken to Buchenwald. Would the author, evidently a empathetic person, not also be concerned by what Bartov describes as “an entire generation of children subjected to ongoing military attacks, loss of parents and long-term malnutrition [who] will suffer severe physical and mental repercussions for the rest of their lives” and the “untold additional thousands of chronically ill persons [who] have had little access to hospital care”? Being critical of or opposed to the Israeli government’s actions is not equivalent to anti-Semitism. Having been victims of a terrible genocide does not entitle a nation to cause others to suffer on the scale that the Palestinians have. Over 70,000 have been killed.
I valued and learned from David Weill’s book and I appreciate the privilege of having early access to a copy. I think it is wonderful that he has reconnected with his heritage and feels he has finally come home. Regarding the structure of the book itself: I do not think that his dividing the memoir into four sections was necessary. A chronological telling would’ve been more effective, eliminating some unnecessary repetition. Furthermore, I wished for a deeper more considered psychological processing of the author’s spiritual journey. Most of all, however, I would have liked to see an acknowledgement that there are elements to being a member of a tribe that can potentially be toxic.
March 27, 2026
Tell Me I Belong: A Journey Across Faiths and Generations by David Weill
I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway.
Tell Me I Belong is a highly readable book that I believe many people will relate to these days as so many are raised with multiple/no faiths and are in search of identity. Weill's writing style was easy to read and enjoyable and he thoughtfully took us on his journey in a way that unfolded the story for us. I also felt that in spite of the specificity of his story, there were universal themes that were important and powerful. And I appreciated how deeply personal he was willing to get. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 only because his writing style, while enjoyable and readable, didn't blow me out of the water. Also the book itself - I think because the themes and topics were so huge - didn't go quite as deep in certain ways that it might have. But it's certainly a book I would recommend. Well worth the read.
On a personal note I felt very appreciative of the book. He expressed, so beautifully and vulnerably, what so many Jews experience on so many levels - the historical trauma, the experience after Oct 7 and the ensuing vilification/over-simplification of conflict in the region based on people not doing their homework (like the protesters and TNC (that book made me so angry), etc. Thank you thank you for being an educated alternate voice out there. I'm grateful. I also appreciated how you brought understanding to how being Jewish is not about a religion. It's an ethnic, indigenous to Judea peoplehood, and the "religion" is simply a method for passing on values. Most people don't understand this and that understanding can make a powerful difference. I only was left wondering about his daughters and how his awakening to his own identity might impact them...
I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway.
Tell Me I Belong is a highly readable book that I believe many people will relate to these days as so many are raised with multiple/no faiths and are in search of identity. Weill's writing style was easy to read and enjoyable and he thoughtfully took us on his journey in a way that unfolded the story for us. I also felt that in spite of the specificity of his story, there were universal themes that were important and powerful. And I appreciated how deeply personal he was willing to get. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 only because his writing style, while enjoyable and readable, didn't blow me out of the water. Also the book itself - I think because the themes and topics were so huge - didn't go quite as deep in certain ways that it might have. But it's certainly a book I would recommend. Well worth the read.
On a personal note I felt very appreciative of the book. He expressed, so beautifully and vulnerably, what so many Jews experience on so many levels - the historical trauma, the experience after Oct 7 and the ensuing vilification/over-simplification of conflict in the region based on people not doing their homework (like the protesters and TNC (that book made me so angry), etc. Thank you thank you for being an educated alternate voice out there. I'm grateful. I also appreciated how you brought understanding to how being Jewish is not about a religion. It's an ethnic, indigenous to Judea peoplehood, and the "religion" is simply a method for passing on values. Most people don't understand this and that understanding can make a powerful difference. I only was left wondering about his daughters and how his awakening to his own identity might impact them...
March 22, 2026
Suppose you had the opportunity to choose your religion instead of joining that of your family and community. David had a Baptist mother, a Holocaust Jewish survivor father and grandfather and two Catholic daughters but he did not feel comfortable with those faiths.This book is a fascinating account of his journey to find how it felt natural to find where he belongs.
May 25, 2026
Tell Me I Belong: A Journey Across Faiths and Generations is a deeply personal, thoughtful, and emotionally powerful memoir that explores identity, faith, family history, and the lifelong search for belonging. David Weill opens the door to an intensely human journey one that is not simply about religion, but about understanding where we come from and how those roots shape who we become.
What makes this memoir especially compelling is its honesty. From the very beginning, Weill presents himself not as someone with all the answers, but as a man wrestling with questions that many people quietly carry throughout their lives. Growing up between a Jewish father and Southern Baptist mother while religion remained largely unspoken in the home created a profound sense of displacement and uncertainty that feels authentic and relatable. His feeling of standing between worlds never fully fitting into one identity or another gives the memoir an emotional foundation that immediately draws readers in.
One of the strongest aspects of the book is how beautifully it blends personal narrative with larger themes of faith and generational legacy. Weill’s spiritual journey, including his conversion to Catholicism and later search for his Jewish roots, is handled with remarkable openness and reflection. Rather than presenting faith as simple or straightforward, he explores it as something deeply personal, evolving, and often complicated. That honesty gives the memoir depth and allows readers from many different backgrounds to connect with the story, regardless of their own beliefs.
The sections involving family history are particularly moving. The discovery of his grandfather’s imprisonment in Dachau and the investigative journey into his family’s past add profound emotional and historical weight to the narrative. These moments elevate the memoir beyond a story of personal spirituality and transform it into an exploration of inherited memory, survival, and the enduring impact of history across generations. The journey to Berlin and the search for his father’s first home feel especially poignant, not merely as physical travel but as acts of emotional and historical reconciliation.
I also appreciated how the memoir balances intellectual reflection with heartfelt storytelling. David Weill’s background as a renowned transplant physician brings another fascinating layer to the book. There is a natural sense of curiosity and compassion in his writing, as though the same care he has brought to medicine informs his approach to understanding people, history, and belief. The result is a memoir that feels thoughtful without becoming overly academic and emotional without ever feeling forced.
The writing style itself is elegant and inviting. Weill shares deeply personal experiences with humility and clarity, allowing readers to walk beside him through moments of uncertainty, revelation, and healing. The pacing feels natural, moving between present reflection and family history in a way that steadily builds emotional resonance.
What stayed with me most after finishing Tell Me I Belong was its universal message. While rooted in one man’s journey across faiths and generations, the memoir speaks to a much larger human experience the longing to understand ourselves, honor our past, and find a place where we truly belong.
For readers who enjoy memoirs that combine spirituality, family history, personal growth, and historical reflection, this book is a thoughtful and rewarding experience. Honest, moving, and deeply reflective, Tell Me I Belong is far more than a memoir, it is a meaningful exploration of identity and humanity that fully deserves a 5-star review.
What makes this memoir especially compelling is its honesty. From the very beginning, Weill presents himself not as someone with all the answers, but as a man wrestling with questions that many people quietly carry throughout their lives. Growing up between a Jewish father and Southern Baptist mother while religion remained largely unspoken in the home created a profound sense of displacement and uncertainty that feels authentic and relatable. His feeling of standing between worlds never fully fitting into one identity or another gives the memoir an emotional foundation that immediately draws readers in.
One of the strongest aspects of the book is how beautifully it blends personal narrative with larger themes of faith and generational legacy. Weill’s spiritual journey, including his conversion to Catholicism and later search for his Jewish roots, is handled with remarkable openness and reflection. Rather than presenting faith as simple or straightforward, he explores it as something deeply personal, evolving, and often complicated. That honesty gives the memoir depth and allows readers from many different backgrounds to connect with the story, regardless of their own beliefs.
The sections involving family history are particularly moving. The discovery of his grandfather’s imprisonment in Dachau and the investigative journey into his family’s past add profound emotional and historical weight to the narrative. These moments elevate the memoir beyond a story of personal spirituality and transform it into an exploration of inherited memory, survival, and the enduring impact of history across generations. The journey to Berlin and the search for his father’s first home feel especially poignant, not merely as physical travel but as acts of emotional and historical reconciliation.
I also appreciated how the memoir balances intellectual reflection with heartfelt storytelling. David Weill’s background as a renowned transplant physician brings another fascinating layer to the book. There is a natural sense of curiosity and compassion in his writing, as though the same care he has brought to medicine informs his approach to understanding people, history, and belief. The result is a memoir that feels thoughtful without becoming overly academic and emotional without ever feeling forced.
The writing style itself is elegant and inviting. Weill shares deeply personal experiences with humility and clarity, allowing readers to walk beside him through moments of uncertainty, revelation, and healing. The pacing feels natural, moving between present reflection and family history in a way that steadily builds emotional resonance.
What stayed with me most after finishing Tell Me I Belong was its universal message. While rooted in one man’s journey across faiths and generations, the memoir speaks to a much larger human experience the longing to understand ourselves, honor our past, and find a place where we truly belong.
For readers who enjoy memoirs that combine spirituality, family history, personal growth, and historical reflection, this book is a thoughtful and rewarding experience. Honest, moving, and deeply reflective, Tell Me I Belong is far more than a memoir, it is a meaningful exploration of identity and humanity that fully deserves a 5-star review.
May 18, 2026
My Review
First, I wish to say thank you to the author, publisher and sponsors for the contest that allowed me to win this book. It was a pleasant surprise to be chosen!
Secondly, I wish that I could rave about it as I suspect a number of people will love it and find meaning within its pages for them personally. But for me, despite having great sorrow for all of those impacted by the Holocaust and other cruel atrocities and acts of persecution, this book didn't have hardly any emotional impact. I find that strange because I am a woman of faith.
The author, David Weill was born to his parents of different faiths. His father, grandparents and paternal relatives were and are Jewish. His mother and the woman, Deborah who helped run the household when David was younger were of the Baptist faith. Deborah was the only one who strictly attended church, sometimes taking David with her. He felt that he enjoyed the experience but deep down, he wanted a religion, someone to believe in but felt he had none that was meaningful to him. He also wanted to know more of his father and grandparents. In reading this book one can tell they aren't accustomed to expressing themselves emotionally and this impacts David deeply. Who are they? What do they believe and why believe if you aren't going to practice what you believe?
Complicating matters, David's paternal grandfather was taken from his home in the dark of night when the Nazis were in power. He was taken to Buchenwald, a well known concentration camp where he was assigned to work in a quarry hauling huge stones back and forth all day. Somehow he survived. In his quest for faith, understanding and peace, David travels there years later with his daughter. He'd been married and a father for quite some time by then. His wife was home in New Orleans. Their two girls were young adults. Adding to the author's search for his own faith, he notes that his wife and daughters are Catholic...
I won't give the rest away but I found that although well written (with the exception of a laugh out loud moment due to the unexpected spelling mistake where instead of the word "tatters," David used "taters" lol) it didn't hold my interest and I found it dry.
First, I wish to say thank you to the author, publisher and sponsors for the contest that allowed me to win this book. It was a pleasant surprise to be chosen!
Secondly, I wish that I could rave about it as I suspect a number of people will love it and find meaning within its pages for them personally. But for me, despite having great sorrow for all of those impacted by the Holocaust and other cruel atrocities and acts of persecution, this book didn't have hardly any emotional impact. I find that strange because I am a woman of faith.
The author, David Weill was born to his parents of different faiths. His father, grandparents and paternal relatives were and are Jewish. His mother and the woman, Deborah who helped run the household when David was younger were of the Baptist faith. Deborah was the only one who strictly attended church, sometimes taking David with her. He felt that he enjoyed the experience but deep down, he wanted a religion, someone to believe in but felt he had none that was meaningful to him. He also wanted to know more of his father and grandparents. In reading this book one can tell they aren't accustomed to expressing themselves emotionally and this impacts David deeply. Who are they? What do they believe and why believe if you aren't going to practice what you believe?
Complicating matters, David's paternal grandfather was taken from his home in the dark of night when the Nazis were in power. He was taken to Buchenwald, a well known concentration camp where he was assigned to work in a quarry hauling huge stones back and forth all day. Somehow he survived. In his quest for faith, understanding and peace, David travels there years later with his daughter. He'd been married and a father for quite some time by then. His wife was home in New Orleans. Their two girls were young adults. Adding to the author's search for his own faith, he notes that his wife and daughters are Catholic...
I won't give the rest away but I found that although well written (with the exception of a laugh out loud moment due to the unexpected spelling mistake where instead of the word "tatters," David used "taters" lol) it didn't hold my interest and I found it dry.
February 11, 2026
Tell Me I Belong: A Journey Across Faiths and Generations by David Weill
I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway. 💛📚
This memoir was a slower read for me, but I still found a lot to think about in it. At its heart, it’s a story about identity, inheritance, and the deep human need to feel like you “fit” somewhere. 🧭🧡
Weill grows up in New Orleans in a home where religion is basically not discussed, despite having a Jewish father and a Southern Baptist mother. That quiet absence, and the feeling of being slightly outside every circle, becomes a thread that follows him into adulthood. Even when he’s accomplished and respected in his career, that question of belonging keeps tugging at him. 🌿
What I appreciated most was the generational scope. As he digs into his family history, the memoir expands beyond personal searching and becomes about history that is both intimate and devastating. The sections tied to uncovering records, tracing family roots, and confronting the realities of what his family endured were the most absorbing parts for me. 🕯️🗂️
That said, the pacing did drag at times, and I occasionally wished for a bit more emotional processing on the page, especially when it came to the faith transitions and what they meant in daily life. Some moments felt more reported than fully lived through with the reader. 🫶
What I Loved
• The exploration of identity across faiths and generations 🧬✨
• The family history research, which felt like the strongest and most compelling thread 🔎📜
• The reflections on belonging, and how “success” does not always solve that ache 💭🫀
What Didn’t Work for Me
• A slower pace overall, it took me longer to connect 🐢
• Some sections felt more surface-level than I wanted, especially around spiritual interiority 🌙
• A bit of repetition in the structure 📝
⭐ Star Rating: 3 stars ⭐⭐⭐
Thoughtful, personal, and at times really moving, even if it did not fully click for me as a memoir experience. If you like family history deep-dives and big questions about identity and faith, this one is worth a look. 🌸📖
I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway. 💛📚
This memoir was a slower read for me, but I still found a lot to think about in it. At its heart, it’s a story about identity, inheritance, and the deep human need to feel like you “fit” somewhere. 🧭🧡
Weill grows up in New Orleans in a home where religion is basically not discussed, despite having a Jewish father and a Southern Baptist mother. That quiet absence, and the feeling of being slightly outside every circle, becomes a thread that follows him into adulthood. Even when he’s accomplished and respected in his career, that question of belonging keeps tugging at him. 🌿
What I appreciated most was the generational scope. As he digs into his family history, the memoir expands beyond personal searching and becomes about history that is both intimate and devastating. The sections tied to uncovering records, tracing family roots, and confronting the realities of what his family endured were the most absorbing parts for me. 🕯️🗂️
That said, the pacing did drag at times, and I occasionally wished for a bit more emotional processing on the page, especially when it came to the faith transitions and what they meant in daily life. Some moments felt more reported than fully lived through with the reader. 🫶
What I Loved
• The exploration of identity across faiths and generations 🧬✨
• The family history research, which felt like the strongest and most compelling thread 🔎📜
• The reflections on belonging, and how “success” does not always solve that ache 💭🫀
What Didn’t Work for Me
• A slower pace overall, it took me longer to connect 🐢
• Some sections felt more surface-level than I wanted, especially around spiritual interiority 🌙
• A bit of repetition in the structure 📝
⭐ Star Rating: 3 stars ⭐⭐⭐
Thoughtful, personal, and at times really moving, even if it did not fully click for me as a memoir experience. If you like family history deep-dives and big questions about identity and faith, this one is worth a look. 🌸📖
June 1, 2026
I received Tell Me I Belong by David Weill for free through Goodreads’ giveaway program.
Weill, whose father was a German Jew and whose mother was a Baptist from the South, charts his awakening to religion. Growing up in New Orleans with no religion, Weill always felt apart from others. Religion gave a sense of belonging. As be moved along in his life- going to college and medical school, getting married and having kids- he began to explore what religion meant to him (and which religion he should be a part of).
Weill ends up converting to Catholicism, his wife’s religion, but we can tell it’s not such a great fit. He investigates his mother’s family and his father’s family. He travels to Germany, which his father fled, and to Alabama, which his mother left. He also goes to Israel. In the midst of all this searching, he comes to understand his Jewish roots and to embrace them.
A poignant story about a man searching for his roots and coming to terms with them.
Weill, whose father was a German Jew and whose mother was a Baptist from the South, charts his awakening to religion. Growing up in New Orleans with no religion, Weill always felt apart from others. Religion gave a sense of belonging. As be moved along in his life- going to college and medical school, getting married and having kids- he began to explore what religion meant to him (and which religion he should be a part of).
Weill ends up converting to Catholicism, his wife’s religion, but we can tell it’s not such a great fit. He investigates his mother’s family and his father’s family. He travels to Germany, which his father fled, and to Alabama, which his mother left. He also goes to Israel. In the midst of all this searching, he comes to understand his Jewish roots and to embrace them.
A poignant story about a man searching for his roots and coming to terms with them.
May 9, 2026
Thoughtful and thought-provoking book by second/third generation holocaust survivor. The author is raised by a German-born Jewish father who escaped Nazi regime just before the closing of its doors, and a Christian mother. But he is given no religious identification. While he carries a tradition-rich Jewish surname, he does not consider himself Jewish, or for that matter Christian. The book explains how he eventually embarrasses his Jewish roots and the rich tradition that he is a part of. He examines the traumatic legacy of the Holocaust not just for survivors but for subsequent
generations and how this legacy shapes the personalities of the survivors children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
I think this is an important read for anyone who has struggled with their religious, especially Jewish, identity.
Thank you to Goodreads for a KINDLE copy of this book
generations and how this legacy shapes the personalities of the survivors children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
I think this is an important read for anyone who has struggled with their religious, especially Jewish, identity.
Thank you to Goodreads for a KINDLE copy of this book
March 5, 2026
This memoir just didn't grab me and pull me in. This is not saying that it was poorly written. It says that I enjoy exploring all types of genre's and subjects, but this book didn't keep my interest.
You never know ...
I thank David for sharing (what I call) his God given gifts and talents for saving lives through his profession, and that he continues to stay in involved from the other side of the fence.
I also enjoyed his genealogy work that dated so many centuries before. Fascinating! I would love to be able to trace my heritage back that far. This must have taken many hours of your already busy life!
Unlike David, I am glad that his daughters have grown up in the faith.
Blessings to you and your family.
You never know ...
I thank David for sharing (what I call) his God given gifts and talents for saving lives through his profession, and that he continues to stay in involved from the other side of the fence.
I also enjoyed his genealogy work that dated so many centuries before. Fascinating! I would love to be able to trace my heritage back that far. This must have taken many hours of your already busy life!
Unlike David, I am glad that his daughters have grown up in the faith.
Blessings to you and your family.
April 1, 2026
I so enjoyed this amazing true story all of the topics and the journey he takes us on his personal journey it’s amazing really I was so captivated from the beginning to the end of this amazing story. It really opens your heart in eyes to many things on this journey with him I just wanted to hug this Author he’s an amazing man sharing his personal life with us! Please consider reading this book you will not be disappointed!!
March 7, 2026
Excellent book that left me with a lot to think about. My main question is who said we have to choose sides? We are all created by one God and Jesus was a Jew. If only we were more child like in “naive biology”, the natural ability to see ourselves as part of rather than separate from. It’s not about race or religion, it’s about relationship. More than five stars. I highly recommend this book.
November 15, 2025
This was an interesting story, and I appreciated reading it. I found the author's search for identity and belonging really fascinating. I do have a few differences of opinion with the author on Gaza, small caveat, but I do wonder if his take has changed any in the past year or so.
January 28, 2026
4.5 stars
Very intersting book, the author is discovering his roots.
Very intersting book, the author is discovering his roots.
April 26, 2026
This has a good outlook. This was a Goodreads giveaway winner.
May 22, 2026
Very fascinating
This was a very fascinating experience! I loved it all the way through seeing the journey of faith through the generations!
This was a very fascinating experience! I loved it all the way through seeing the journey of faith through the generations!
Want to Read
June 4, 2026Good
June 2, 2026
Giveaway Reward Did Not Dissappoint
I received this book as a giveaway through Goodreads. I can say that this book was surprising to me. A man, a physician, brought up by a non practicing Jewish father and a southern Baptist from Selma Alabama mother searching for answers to his life through the traumas of his family. I found this a very good read!
I received this book as a giveaway through Goodreads. I can say that this book was surprising to me. A man, a physician, brought up by a non practicing Jewish father and a southern Baptist from Selma Alabama mother searching for answers to his life through the traumas of his family. I found this a very good read!
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