Two weeks ago I attended the Torah study at Temple Israel in Long Beach. Temple Israel is the synagogue my father's family help start in Long Beach. The names of some of my relatives including my great-grandparents names, great-uncles, and some cousins names are on a wall of memories in the temple's entrance.
The parsha we read that Saturday was about Jacob blessing Joseph and Joseph's sons. There was discussion about how important family is, and how Jacob, at the time, had no idea about how much his sons and their children and grandchildren, and their descendents would impact the world.
As I sat there, it hit me that my great-grandmother, Esther Feingold, had eight children. My dad only knew her as his "sweet grandma," when he grew up in Belmont Shore, but she and her husband Eli Simon Schneider, came to America with their eight children, and some of them were a significant part of Temple Israel after they arrived in Long Beach in the late 1920s. I've heard that especially Irving Schneider, my dad's uncle, made significant contributions to the Jewish community in Long Beach.
Anyway, how would my great-grandmother Esther know that on December 26, 2015, that her son Max Schneider's son, my dad, Arthur Schneider, would be at the Torah study at Temple Israel, with me, my husband, and my two daughters?
It hit me that Esther and Eli Simon succeeded in passing something special to us. Our family has somehow continued to love being Jewish. They perhaps may have blessed their children and the children of their children and then their grandchildren and great-grandchildren just as Jacob did!
Also, it hit me that I truly feel part of Temple Israel and have Jewish family is Long Beach because so many of the people there have been so welcoming to me, my dad, my husband, and my children!
No comments:
Post a Comment