Could I forgive my brother for taking my inheritance?
As told to Rivka Streicher
I was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, but by the time I was ten years old I’d lived in five places. We moved often, following the capricious road of my father’s radio broadcasting job.
My parents were nominally religious and would attend synagogue on the High Holidays. When we lived in a small town in rural Virginia, we went to a temple that dated back to the Confederate era. It had an organ and a choir and was absolutely Reform. During our sojourn in Tennessee, we attended the synagogue closest to our home, which happened to be an Orthodox shul.
My grandparents on both sides were traditional — they kept a kosher Pesach for example — but they seemed to take for granted that religion was an old-world relic, and they didn’t try to pass it on.
In any event, religion was just a vague backdrop to my childhood. My father’s rage and violence overlaid everything else.
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