The Choices We Make

During the six years since my father died I have spent large amounts of time trying to fill in some gaps in the family history.

I haven’t focused solely upon one side of the family or the other and have bounced back and forth between them.

Some of it is exactly as I expected and or heard stories about as a young child and some of it has been quite surprising.

Haven’t discovered that I am the the heir to royalty or any kind of business empire but I have come across a few things that have raised questions that I have yet to find answers to.

Presumably there might be people who can fill in the gaps to my questions but I have to find them and then ask if they will answer.

You never know about such things.

Ask my friend Johnny about his divorced friend who still hasn’t told him if she really is dating or if she would be open to conversations about the future.

Ask my cousin who is the grandson of my Aunt Rose, the youngest sibling of my paternal grandfather. Apparently my aunt had a boyfriend who got her pregnant when she was about 20 or 21.

She gave him away and 70 some years later my until then unknown to me cousin reached out to see if I had any answers.

Why Weren’t You A Rabbi?

That is a screenshot from a link to a rabbinical profile of Orthodox rabbis in the UK. It won’t give you the story behind my paternal grandmother having married someone before my grandfather but it does show you information about my great uncle and one of his sons.

FWIW, my father told me about my grandmother’s first marriage a few years before we died. We didn’t spend much time talking about it because he didn’t think it was particularly important.

Many of the things that happened in the past were left there by him because they were just that…in the past.

Grandma died when I was little so I never had occasion to ask her about it and I really didn’t dig too deep when y father brought it up.

Dad didn’t know much and he said as far as she knew he didn’t have any siblings. That was enough for me until after he died and I began to wonder more about it.

Dad’s first cousin Art was able to fill in a few gaps. He said the first guy was a bit of a jerk and no one like him or at least that is how he remembered it.

Anyhoo, that brings us back to the information about my great uncle and his son. I grew up hearing that my Great-grandfather’s younger brother was a rabbi and that he had lived in London.

I knew he had gone to Israel right after the Six day war and that my great-grandfather had taken a trip out there and that they had spent time with my uncle Yaakov, who was one of their younger brothers.

But I had no idea my uncle the rabbi had retired there or if I did I had long since forgotten about it.

My great-grandfather was proud to be Jewish but he wasn’t religious and neither was his brother Yaakov. I sometimes wonder why Great Grandfather chose to come to the U.S. and not the U.K.

My grandfather told me that when his father came to the U.S. he wanted to be American which is part of why he lived his life here in a more secular way. I also know my great-great grandfather came here and after seeing his son eating treif (non Kosher food) said it was no place for a Jew and went back to Lithuania.

Or at least that is how I learned the story some 75 or 80 years after it had taken place so it is possible that is incorrect.

I am not sure why my Uncle Yaakov picked moving to Israel over the UK or the US or why he wasn’t religious.

Can’t tell you why he or his eldest brother weren’t rabbis and am not sure what their youngest brother chose to do because we seem to have no record of him.

However I know one of their younger sisters married a rabbi and that he took his family all over including the UK and South Africa before settling here in the U.S.

You Should Have Asked & You Should Be Kind

That is me when I was around 40 or so. If I could go back in time I would have lots to say to that guy. I would give him a list of questions he/I should have asked of people who could fill in some of the gaps.

I would tell him it might not seem important to have answers to everything but that some stuff was more meaningful than he might realize.

Can’t say he would have gotten some of it and I think he would have found not knowing answers to some things to not be important.

He might have responded that you shouldn’t have to ask certain questions and that doing so showed that people lacked respect for you and that maybe you lacked self respect.

But I would have told him experience has taught me that people don’t always recognize when they are being unkind and or think their behavior is appropriate.

I’d tell him I have learned there is truth to some of that and sometimes hurt feelings come solely from what are unimportant misunderstandings.

“Be kind and be compassionate. It will go farther than you think. The answers you get and or give may provide the kind of peace of mind people need. It is a gift you can give without much effort.”