When I was growing up in the 1960s on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, “awe” was a word to be memorized for spelling tests. My High Holy Day memories were of new patent leather shoes, Lichtman’s round raisin challah dipped in honey and a synagogue service that was more “night at the opera” than a meeting between man and his Maker.
My parents were Hungarians, survivors. In those pre-Spielberg/March of the Living years, they didn’t talk about their prewar or wartime lives. In those years, nobody talked. Back then, the goal was to forget the past and start a new life as a good, happy American. One of the few memories that seeped through from their previous lives was of shlugging kaparos, engaging in the pre-Yom Kippur penitential ceremony performed by swinging a live chicken over one’s head.
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