It was after Yom Kippur, in the year I was bar mitzvah’ed, that we heard the news. There was a slight chill in the air, with the leaves falling more quickly than usual. I did not expect to hear more about the history of my father or grandfather that I got in dribs and drabs on those quiet early Sunday mornings that my father and I sorted the newspapers for sale. I did not ask more about their past lives. There was every reason not to.
Yet it came unexpectedly. My father was watching Walter Cronkite on the evening news. Our candy store was closed on Wednesdays, so there was nothing to distract him. It was just a short comment that only the interested would notice. A minor Israeli official, a rabbi and Holocaust survivor, had been killed on the streets of Tel Aviv by another Holocaust survivor.
Dad dropped the newspaper that he often read between the commercials, looked white, and did not speak for a moment. I barely noticed, but the name of the person who was assassinated was Izrael, our real family name, the name my cousin had whispered to me as a family secret. My mother, sitting next to my father on the sofa, looked at him.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“No, I am not okay,” he said, red-faced, going to the phone on the kitchen wall. It was a “princess” phone with a light-up dial that was easier and...
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