Thank you for that. Every survivor has deep wells of agony that torment them no matter what the blessings that subsequently come their way. Your description of some of what you witnessed is an honest and welcome memorial. B"H may his memory always be for a blessing.
That was a beautiful tribute to your father, Tom. I love that musical too and as a preteen used to sing Mary Magdalene’s two songs constantly unless forced to stop by irritated family members. (I had no idea what the songs were about, of course—I just liked the tunes.) Anyway, it was lovely how you tied your dad’s story back to Jesus as he is depicted in the musical.
I appreciate your stories of the varied influences in your life and the decisions you made along the way. I like that Judaism has room for the thought processes born of these influences. Your memorial to your father gave a glimpse of a good man. It made me laugh because this mixed up background was familiar, and probably familiar to a lot of people.
I have a very mixed up background too…East Prussian Jewish and German Lutheran on my mother’s side and Ukrainian Orthodox on my father’s. And when we came to America as refugees, we were sponsored by a Mormon family who tried to convert us (my Mother wasn’t having any of that) and settled in a mostly Hispanic Catholic area. Of all these influences, the Jewish part was the strongest, only because my father, for all his deeply Eastern Orthodox upbringing, was a passionate Zionist and filled our little house with works of Jewish authors and musicians who had settled in Israel. The developments in Israel, and the latest books, were regular topics of dinnertime conversation. Toward the end of his life I once asked him if he had ever thought of converting. He became pensive and after a moment said “I’m too old for that now.”
As for my mother’s mashup of Jewish and Lutheran parents and how that all went down in Nazi Germany, well that’s another story for another day.
Among domesticated animals, the healthiest are always those of mixed breeds; the mutts, in other words. I’ve always felt like that - kind of a mutt. Where I grew up, we were strangers in a strange land, and our own inherited influences mixed in with a new sea of influences. I have sometimes felt a bit envious of the immigrants who were able to settle into communities of their own heritage, where there was the familiarity of language, culture, religion, food – in other words, home, even if in a strange land. It would be less perplexing! You at least have made a choice, picked a path that seems to be working for you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Blessings to your Dad.
Thank you for that. Every survivor has deep wells of agony that torment them no matter what the blessings that subsequently come their way. Your description of some of what you witnessed is an honest and welcome memorial. B"H may his memory always be for a blessing.
That was a beautiful tribute to your father, Tom. I love that musical too and as a preteen used to sing Mary Magdalene’s two songs constantly unless forced to stop by irritated family members. (I had no idea what the songs were about, of course—I just liked the tunes.) Anyway, it was lovely how you tied your dad’s story back to Jesus as he is depicted in the musical.
I appreciate your stories of the varied influences in your life and the decisions you made along the way. I like that Judaism has room for the thought processes born of these influences. Your memorial to your father gave a glimpse of a good man. It made me laugh because this mixed up background was familiar, and probably familiar to a lot of people.
I have a very mixed up background too…East Prussian Jewish and German Lutheran on my mother’s side and Ukrainian Orthodox on my father’s. And when we came to America as refugees, we were sponsored by a Mormon family who tried to convert us (my Mother wasn’t having any of that) and settled in a mostly Hispanic Catholic area. Of all these influences, the Jewish part was the strongest, only because my father, for all his deeply Eastern Orthodox upbringing, was a passionate Zionist and filled our little house with works of Jewish authors and musicians who had settled in Israel. The developments in Israel, and the latest books, were regular topics of dinnertime conversation. Toward the end of his life I once asked him if he had ever thought of converting. He became pensive and after a moment said “I’m too old for that now.”
As for my mother’s mashup of Jewish and Lutheran parents and how that all went down in Nazi Germany, well that’s another story for another day.
Among domesticated animals, the healthiest are always those of mixed breeds; the mutts, in other words. I’ve always felt like that - kind of a mutt. Where I grew up, we were strangers in a strange land, and our own inherited influences mixed in with a new sea of influences. I have sometimes felt a bit envious of the immigrants who were able to settle into communities of their own heritage, where there was the familiarity of language, culture, religion, food – in other words, home, even if in a strange land. It would be less perplexing! You at least have made a choice, picked a path that seems to be working for you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Blessings to your Dad.