pulled me out from under the humongous vehicle. Fortunately, the new shoes saved my foot from

4.2.12 WC: 191694 pulled me out from under the humongous vehicle. Fortunately, the new shoes saved my foot from being crushed, but several bones were broken and I was rushed to the nearest hospital, which was Catholic. My parents left me there overnight. At about 8:00PM one of the nurses called my mother and said that I was refusing to eat and demanding to go to Florida. My mother said, “He’s never even heard of Florida.” She was told to come to the hospital immediately. She saw me sitting in front of my tray of food refusing to eat and screaming, “Miami, Miami!” To the nurses, that referred to a city in southern Florida. My mother immediately understood that I was referring not to Miami, but to my “yami’”—which was short for yamulka, the religious skullcap that every Jewish male must wear while eating. I refused to eat without my yami, even though I was only 3 years old. My response was automatic—programmed. As soon as my mother made a yamulka for me out of a handkerchief and placed it on my head, I ate all the food and asked for doubles (the Catholic hospital provided kosher food for Jewish patients.) I’m sure I mumbled the appropriate Bruchas for each item of food I imbibed. We learned these rules first at home and then in the Yeshiva—Jewish day school—that nearly everyone in the neighborhood attended. As is typical in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, there were two competing Yeshivas: One taught Yiddish, the other Hebrew. I started out in the Yiddish-speaking more traditional, school-named “Torahs Emes” (the Truthful Bible), where my grandma Ringel wanted me to go to learn the “Mamma Loshen’”—the mother tongue. But after two years, my parents switched me to the Hebrew-speaking, more modern Yeshiva, named “Etz Chaim” (the Tree of Life), which I attended through 8" grade, when I shifted to a Yeshiva high school until I finished 12 grade. My Yeshiva education was a decidedly mixed blessing (both in the literal and figurative senses of that overworked phrase.) The hours were long: elementary school went from 8:30AM to 4:30PM; high school from 9:00AM to 6:10PM. We had only one full day off, Saturday, but it really wasn't a day off, since we spent much of it in the synagogue--9:00AM to noon and then afternoon and evening services, which varied in time depending on when it got dark (two stars had to be visible to the naked eye, or in the event there were clouds, "would have been" visible. ) Friday was an early day, with school ending at about 1PM to allow us to prepare for the Sabbath. And Sunday was also a half day, though this compromise with secularism engendered grumbling from some of the old fashioned rabbis, who wanted us to spend the entire Christian day of rest in class. Mornings were generally devoted to religious subjects—Bible (Tanach) Talmud, (Gemarah), ritual rules (Shulchan Aruch,) and ethics (Pirkay Avos.) Afternoons were devoted to the usual secular subjects--math, science, history, English, French (for the smart kids who wanted to become doctors) or Spanish (for the rest of us), (no German or Latin), civics, gym, art, music appreciation--as well as "Jewish secular" subjects, such as Hebrew, Jewish history, Zionism and Jewish literature. Then there was debate, student government, basketball and other "extracurricular" activities. Lunch "hour", which was 35 minutes, separated the religious from the secular classes and was the only time we ever discussed the conflict between what we were taught 23 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017110