Hear Neighbor Loren Levinson’s Amazing Backstory

When NPR’s The Takeaway asked listeners if they had an unusual story about a family secret they’d uncovered, they got such a fascinating response from neighbor Loren Levinson that they had her on the show this morning to talk about it.

Loren, who blogs about identity at Moses & Muhammad Walk Into a Bar…, was adopted into a Jewish household, and she says that while she didn’t exactly discount any possibilities about what her birth parents were like, she didn’t expect what she eventually discovered.

“I just thought that I must have been from a Jewish family very similar to the one I’m in,” she said.

Then one day in 2008, she Googled her birth mother, found her phone number, and gave her a call.

“I discovered in that one phone call that I was a stolen baby and that I was from Pakistani Muslim heritage,” Loren said.

It’s an incredible story, and you can listen to the whole thing above, or by going through this link.