Bryan,
I believe I am your cousin and my father Herbert is your Mom's brother. My daughter googled the name Smilowitz and emailed me about your posting 4 years ago on this website.
Several years ago, I received an email from some cousins of our parents (again after my daughter contacted them after finding a letter from them written many years earlier to my parents) who now live in Israel and were doing a family tree and history. If you email me directly (and I tried to email you directly with more private information), I will send you their email address and copies of their emails to me with a fairly complete (but with some inaccuracies) and interesting history of our family.
Anita