Since I was old enough to understand, I was taught to be proud of being Jewish and even more so Israeli. My mother’s side of the family was all in the Holocaust and my dad’s dad fought in the WWII against the Germans. I was born in Englewood, NJ and lived in West NY, NJ. My mom is from Israel and moved to NYC when she was 12 and my dad was born in Brooklyn and raised in Long Island. Although I only lived in West NY for 2 years, those years are ones that changed my family greatly. In my apartment building there was a board made up of residents in the building who were voted to each position. My father was a member of this board and had a somewhat powerful position. The building was dominantly non-Jewish but that never bothered either one of my parents.
One day my dad began getting letters of threat towards my family based on the fact that we were Jewish. Being a lawyer, my dad has dealt with many different types of people with all different personalities and problems. When he was in the District Attorney’s office he would receive many threats and had a few break-ins too. So this type of behavior was something that he had seen before and figured it was something that would pass or was just written words. However, as time progressed and my family didn’t follow the wishes of moving out or my dad stepping down, the threats began to get worse and worse.
It soon got to the point where my dad would receive phone calls all day long about our apartment on fire and my mom sister and I were dying in the fire. When these calls did not stop my dad decided that it was time to make a change that would be most beneficial for my sister and me. And so we packed up and moved to the suburbs in Westchester, NY. So at the age of 2 my family packed up and moved to what at that time was a small, unknown town in the middle of the woods.
As the years went on and my sister and I grew up, our town began to slowly upgrade itself. There were many differences between my two homes. The first one had been a city that was predominantly not Jewish, where this new town was closer to being 50 percent if not more Jewish. In Armonk there are more temples/synagogues. Being Jewish in this town did not stand out as much as it had in Englewood and that helped for my family to adjust. My dad was also happier because it meant that he could leave my mom, sister and me at home without having to worry about anything happening to us.
By the time I was 12 years old, there were so many Jewish people in Armonk that I had at least 3 Bar/Bat Mitzvahs a weekend. It got to the point where people would joke that our town was majority Jewish with some Italians and no other races. Most of the surround towns were very similar if not the same so it was easy to get used to this ratio of Jewish people and forget that there really aren’t that many Jews in the world.
Coming to Syracuse it feels more similar to the real world. Well there is still a large group of Jewish people, at this university I’ve come in contact with a lot of other religions and races that are minorities too. Everything that has happened to me regarding my religion and my roots has only made me more proud of who I am and where I come from.
