Dear Family and Friends:

 It was a strange time. The year was 1973, a few months before our son Jeremy would make his grand entrance into the world. Juca’s and my camp gig in Wisconsin had just ended. A year earlier I had stored all of our stuff (furniture, etc.) in the attic of the camp’s Bayit (main building) as we took off for Israel, and now had brought it down, packed it into a U-Haul, and we were about to trek to Cincinnati for our second rabbinic school year. But before we left Chicago, we stopped to see my Grandpa Klotz who was in the hospital. I never thought that that would be the last time we would see each other. It was. 

 My Grandpa, Max Klotz, was an amazing person. He came to the States from Tarnov, Poland in 1906, as did millions of other Eastern European Jews fleeing Pogroms. His three brothers already lived in Chicago, so that’s where my gramps settled. His grandfather had been the Rabbi of Tarnov and, of course, the family was quite Orthodox. Like so many others, he traded his “Old country” Judaism for America.

 A few years later, when my dad came along, he realized that without a connection to the Jewish community, dad wouldn't really have much of a Jewish identity. My grandmother’s side of the family had all come from Prague and founded a classically Reform synagogue on the West side of Chicago, with other Czech Jews. Grandpa Klotz joined and immediately became the most Jewishly learned congregant at B’nai Jehoshua. His classical Hebrew was spot on.

 So, we visit at the hospital and among many other things he said to me, “Al Tashlichaynu B’Eyt Ziknaynu.” “Don’t cast us aside when we are old.” I never have. 

 A few weeks later, Grampa died, and a week after that Jeremy was born. 

There were no sirens, no tornado warnings, but I was caught in a vortex of time, of changing generations. It was like I was standing still and the generations were twirling around me. 

 Now that I am in my late 70’s, I much more understand my grandpa’s words. But the reality is, he didn’t have to say those words to me. I think of him often, I remember him well. I used to tell stories on Shabbat at our camp in Zionsville. I usually began with the words, “A long time ago, far away, across the ocean, in a small town in Poland, Tarnov...” That was my way of honoring his “Zikaron,” his memory. 

 Yes, 1973 was a memorable year. But it really wasn’t strange. These things happen to everyone. 

 Ron