This is what David had to say on being born a Jew:
HOW FORUNATE TO BE BORN A JEW
Sitting in my synagogue seat in the Beit Hakerem Central Synagogue Friday night and Saturday morning, listening to the cantors and reciting the prayers and following the reading of the week's Torah portion, just a few days before the New Year and the Days of Awe culminating in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and Sukkot, the Festival of Booths, and around me a bevy of decent, fine, educated fellow congregants deep in devoted prayer, I reflected on how fortunate I was to have been born a Jew, to be a part of this great religious tradition and the profoundly rich, enriching and exemplary Jewish way of life, part of a people chosen and led by an eternal and loving G-d.
How fortunate to have been spared the horrors of the Holocaust only because my dear father went to Poland in 1938 on a fact-finding mission and found my mother there, fell in love, and my mother bravely decided to go to England to marry him there against her family's wishes. She survived, while so many of her family perished, so that my brother and I grew up happily in England
How fortunate I was to grow up in England with its great traditions of politeness, respect and fair play and religious freedom and tolerance, and to get a good general education, learning French and Spanish at the Lycee Francais de Londres and then graduating from Cambridge.
How fortunate I was after graduating, to marry and realize the Zionist dream of Aliya, to go Israel, and then settling in the incomparably inspiring Holy City of Jerusalem, where my dear parents lie buried and where my children grew up and where I live, work and write and make music to this day.
How fortunate I am to have been born a Jew and to live among my people in our own Jewish State of Israel
How fortunate I am.
David Herman, Jerusalem
After reading what David had to say on being proud to be born a Jew who else would like to comment on that or say something they feel.
I would like to say something:
I am also very proud to be born a Jew no matter how much I rebelled when I was growing up. I grew up in a very small Jewish community in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My father was from Bessarabia and my mother's parents were from the Ukraine. My father came to America when he was 21 years old. My grandmother's family left the Ukraine and went to England before coming to America. I cannot tell you much if anything about my family's background. They never talked about it. My father's mother came to America, could not talk to her because she only spoke Yiddish. She was in the Old Age Home there. I don't know anything about my Zeyde or my father's sisters and brothers or what he had. He did not talk much. My mother was born in the States. She grew up in a small town in Iowa and they were the only Jewish family and then they came to Minneapolis. My grandfather became religious after he retired from his grocery store. When I was young we grew up on what you call the Near North Side in Minneapolis. Jews lived there till the riots happened. The Jews moved to the suburbs and it was never the same again. On Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur during the break we used to go visit the other Synagogues. It was a good time until the riots and my favorite Synagogue became a church.
I made Aliya in 1986 to Israel. There is no place like Israel and it is the only home the Jews have. Yes, I am very proud to say I am a Jew, and live in Israel, in the Holy City of Jerusalem, our capital.
I would like to hear what others have to say about being Jewish no matter where you live in the world, whether it is here in Israel, or someplace else.
If you would like to comment on what David had to say then you will see his e-mail address at the end of what he wrote, so you can contact him directly.
If you want to make a comment to me, then contact me at: hanni@netvision.net.il
Thank you and Shana Tova
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