My parents’ daughter

In her Thursday, May 25, 2006 post, "year in review part ii," Fudge said, “i was listening to the graduates today. they all start the same way. 'thank you, mommy and abba.' 'thank you, ima and tatti.'

you know something? they are not wrong.

if my parents hadn't believed in me enough to send me here, to pay for me to be here, to listen and advise me even when i was completely incoherent, i would be a very different, smaller-minded, and definitely blander person than i am today. you have given me a whole year so far to develop into someone knowledgable. i'm not there yet, but i'm loving every minute of the process.

thank you.

thank you very much.”


“'thank you, mommy and abba.' 'thank you, ima and tatti.'

you know something? they are not wrong."


My father’s father was a carpenter by trade. He fell to his death from the roof of a construction project when my father was only three. His mother was pretty short on funds thereafter, and managed to get him barely enough of a Jewish education to enable him to read the Hebrew alef-bet, more or less.

My mother’s parents, after each trying their hands at a number of trades, including clothing-factory work and tailoring, settled on a life as grocery-store owners. They managed to give their daughter a Jewish education somewhat better than what my father received, but not much.

My parents were determined that their four children would each get a better Jewish education than either of them had gotten.

That’s why each of us had at least four years of Hebrew school, and acquired a reasonable ability to read basic prayerbook Hebrew.

My parents took us to synagogue practically every Sabbath and holiday, even when they, themselves, couldn’t attend with us, work or shopping (in the days when grocery stores weren’t open on Sundays) getting in their way.

We knew that Rosh Hashanah meant dinner with Grandmom and Grandpop, and morning services in shul listening to the blowing of the shofar.

We knew that Yom Kippur meant fasting for 26 hours. We started “practicing” at 10, skipping breakfast first, then eating lunch at 2, then at 4, so that by the time we became B’not or B’nei Mitzvah, we were ready to tackle the entire fast.

We had kiddush in the synagogue’s sukkah on Sukkot, and danced in shul with the sifrei Torah on Simchat Torah.

As we got old enough, each child had her or his own chanukiah (Chanukah menorah) to light.

We sent money to the Jewish National Fund to plant trees in Israel on Tu BiSh’vat, and drowned out the villain Haman’s name in shul on Purim.

We were well acquainted with the sight of our mother boiling silverware for Pesach (Passover). My father read the entire Haggadah, albeit in English, from cover to cover, no matter how many guests left right after the meal.

We knew that Shavuot meant blintzes and rice knishes (a recipe that my grandmother apparently took into the grave with her—I’ve never had rice knishes anywhere but in her home), and the joyous commemoration, the next morning in shul, of our receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai.

We learned Zionism in Jewish day camps and United Synagogue Youth.


Arriving at adulthood, there was much I didn’t know, and still don’t know.

But my parents gave me the tools.

They always encouraged our learning and observance, even when we kids insisted that they stop bringing bacon (our only “pork cheat”) into the house.

They taught us that one can keep growing in observance as adults when they finally went kosher after we’d all moved out of the house.

It’s because of them that I was able to read Hebrew well enough to spend two months learning the Torah reading for the morning of Yom Kippur, which I chanted at my former synagogue for seven years.

It’s because of them that I was able to read Hebrew well enough to spend six months learning the weekday Amidah.

It’s because of them that I went kosher.

It’s because of them that I became a regular synagogue-goer, not just a “High-Holiday Jew.”

It’s because of them that I’ve spent the better part of my adult life becaming a self-educated Jew, insofar as anyone whose People has such a long written and oral tradition and so many members (including many of my fellow and sister bloggers) eager to teach it can be considered self-taught.


Mark/PT, writing about his father, Lester Skier, who passed away on May 18, 2006, the twenty-first day of the Jewish month of Iyar, said of him, "he figured out that the key to having Jewish grandchildren was Jewish education. So he spent every penny he made on tuition to Jewish Day Schools." Mark spoke of how radical it was in the 60s for non-Orthodox parents to send their children to day school. If such a move was considered radical in New York in the 1960s, imagine how radical it would have been in Southern New Jersey in the 1950s. Even the one and only (Conservative) Solomon Schechter Day School in the general area was across the river in Philadelphia, and the only children in our entire Conservative synagogue who attended it were the rabbi’s children. Then, too, my parents were barely able to make ends meet with their kids in public school, so paying tuition was never even a possibility.

I never had an opportunity to attend a Jewish day school.

Nevertheless, I owe everything I am today as a Jew to my parents.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.