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in which I frequently participated - - more often as victim than victor - - but the Borough Park section of Brooklyn was a safe neighborhood. [I guess that’s why my family was so mystified when my brother failed to return home from a shoppi...

not the least of which was when she repeatedly had to defend me for my conduct at school. I remember one incident in particular. I was playing “Ring A Levio” in the schoolyard on any icy winter day and chasing a classmate named Victor Botni...

but I have been ecstatic. It has become the most important quality in my life--and the most significant ingredient in whatever success I may have achieved. It certainly played an important role in my decision to become a lawyer defending fr...

my mother began to doubt her doubting. Doubting was good as long as it didn't lead to breaking with the rituals--as it didn't in her case. Or so she believed

the take away has been a lifelong belief in the certainty of certainty. Why the difference? Surely minor genetic disparities do not explain such a profound difference in world views. Nor does mere intelligence

they shake back and forth while standing up. At a certain point in my life

I will even say ""blessing""—of my Yeshiva education: To question everything and everyone. It was merely an unintended consequence of the Yeshiva method

the school decided to administer IQ tests to all the students. The school called my mother and said that I had gotten one of the highest scores. At first the rabbi thought I had cheated

they hated me even more. I loved conflict

that wasn't good enough. I recall vividly our efforts to find--or contrive--common ground. For some

school-named “Torahs Emes” (the Truthful Bible)

there were two competing Yeshivas: One taught Yiddish

“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

my father was holding my hand on a busy street

while the other half seems to be creating ways around them. Much like the Internal Revenue Code. No wonder so many Jews become lawyers and accountants. It’s not in our DNA; it’s in our religious training.

she would intone the M word. If she saw you putting a handkerchief in your pocket on Shabas

the offending (or offended) item had to be buried in the earth for exactly seven days. That restored its kosher quality by “kashering” it. After eating meat

there was a required “brucha”—a formulistic blessing appropriate to the activity. “Baruch ata Adonoy”—“blessed be you our God”—followed by a reference to His creation: “who brings forth bread from the earth” or “wine from the grapes” or “fr...

I have no idea what my parents believed about the nature of God

who we called Itchie. It had nothing to do with any skin condition. One day my Uncle Itchie took me to a Brooklyn Dodger baseball game that got rained out half way through. We ran to the train station only to find no one tending the token b...