The Jewish Years

Before I start to fill in my experiences, I have to tell it in the order I wrote it in my book. Most of what I am going to tell you is NOT in the book.

I promised to tell all, but we need to start with the beginning….

Hence, “the Jewish Years.” :

I was born in 1954 as a full blooded , unadulterated Jewish girl, complete with Jewish parents. I was fortunate enough to know my great-grandparents, one from each side. It was quite interesting because I really enjoyed them, although neither of them spoke English.

My Zayda was my mom’s grandfather and we used to visit him at the home. He insisted on giving us sen-sen, ugh! But I pretended to like it. My Zayda always carried them in a packet and shook out the little potent squares into our waiting hands. I believe he was close to ninety when he passed.

I was the oldest of four children, a brother and two sisters. My Bubby was my great-grandmother on my mother’s side  and she lived with my aunt in Philadelphia. She used to call me a Yiddish nickname, I cannot spell it , but I can sure say it. It was not until years later that I found out it meant “silly”, in an endearing way. I think. She died in her late eighties.

Being Jewish also means looking the part, in my case anyway. a terrorist would shoot me on the spot Kids would bully because I looked ugly. Really. They would torment me about the way I looked; I had black frizzy hair, and coke bottle lense glasses. Matter of fact, you could not see what I really looked like.

Kids were really nasty to me, I had only a few friends that took me at face value, so I was quite introverted at the time. For instance: a school bus went by me and someone from inside the bus yelled, hey ugly.”

I go deeper into “bullying” in my next post. You do not want to miss it. I tell everything, and it is not pretty.

It was so bad, I wanted to kill myself. However, I did talk to God and made a “pact” with Him. I told Him I would not take my life, if He would make me cute one day.

So, I really can sympathize why the kids today, when bullied, feel worthless. I had friends that looked beyond the outward appearance. However, I have a few theories on that.

My friends and I went into someone’s basement  to play spin the bottle, and when the bottle pointed to me, much to my chagrin, Gary said, “no way.” When he realized that it was the rules, (the other boys reminded him), he asked for the lights to be turned off.  As a consequence, I lost what little self esteem I had left.

Subsequently, there was a payback and it was beautiful! It was a “God thing.”  When Facebook got my attention, I thought I would try to look up old friends, mainly because I went to ten schools, (we moved every five years). I decided to look up Gary. Boy did he look different, so I left him a message with my name to visit my Facebook page. I am now a blond and my hair straigtend out, AND you can see what was hidden in those young years.

I befriended Gary and reminded him of what he did all those years ago. The first thing he said was, “I will definitely kiss you in the brightest light now.” I said, “too late.”

Now maybe you will understand why I was in search of the “Messiah.” I was pretty relentless in my search and it started at home. Believe it. There was God, then the Messiah, Jesus Christ. I thought my Dad would know, because every night we would kneel, in front of my bed and he would say a prayer most of us know. It starts out, “Now I lay me down to sleep….” Sound familiar?

So I approached my Dad with the question, “Who is Jesus?” I must have been eleven or twelve years old. He looked at me and replied,” A Rabbi.” But under no circumstances should I approach my Grandmother with that question. Of course, ignoring the admonition, I straight to my Dad’s Mom and posed the same question thinking maybe she was older, and would know more. Her answer, with hysterics I might add was, “A great teacher.”

The Jews of today for the most part are still waiting for the Messiah. This could not be clearer to me when we would go over to my Aunt’s house for the Passover Supper (Cedar). There was always an empty seat & a fresh place setting. I asked about it and was told that it was for Elijah. Elijah?

Was Elijah the Messiah? I would find out more when I became a Christian. Imagine that.

Even though we lived in a Jewish neighborhood, I made Gentile friends and one gave me an old pocket-sized King James version of the Bible. Thus my journey had begun.