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Testimony I was born Jewish in a not so small town called New York City, raised Catholic, had my Communion and Confirmation as a Catholic. Married as a Jew (in New York City), Bar Mitzvahed in an Orthodox Synagogue in Long Meadow, MA, taught 1st grade in Sunday School at a Synagogue in Nashua, NH, and became a Messianic Jew in Atlanta, GA! To say the least, it’s been quite a journey! You see, my Mom was Jewish, my Father Italian Catholic. Even though they didn’t get married in church in 1945 my dad insisted that the kids be brought up Catholic. Mom, coming from a very secular Jewish household, did not object. So, all three of us were raised Catholic, but not without problems. My parents had to fight in order to get into Catechism classes so we could learn about Catholicism. Our local church, Mount Carmel, in Queens, NYC, finally relented and I was allowed to start studying for my Communion. In NYC we used to get excused on Wed afternoons so we could go to Catechism classes. Children’s mass was 9 am Sunday mornings and we were all expected to be there, in line, with our classes no later than 8:45 am. One Sunday morning when I was 8 years old I was messing around with some friends while waiting in line to go to mass. Well that annoyed one of the Nuns and she came up to me from behind, smacked me in the head to stop and called me “a little Jewish Bastard!”. Knowing that I was wrong, I stopped, but I’ve never forgotten what she said. The Church and the Nuns considered me and my brother and sister to be bastards and not deserving of any respect. That event and others resulted in my leaving the church shortly after being confirmed at the age of 13. I always knew I was Jewish by birth. Even though my Mom and Grandparents did not go to Synagogue they did do “Jewish” things like eating Matzo at Passover, making potato pancakes, and saying Happy Chanukah! I say that because they used to make a “Chanukah Bush” from the Chanukah and Christmas cards they got from family and friends! I was 14 and in high school when my parents were married in church at the altar rail. I had great fun telling all my friends and acquaintances at school that “my parents are getting married today!” Caused quite a stir! My wife, Elaine, and I met in September 1970 at the first Bar Mitzvah I ever attended. I was holding lights for a movie crew and Elaine was the substitute hat check girl. My girlfriend was in Europe on vacation so I flirted all night with this gorgeous blond hat check girl. I finally asked her for her phone number and when she hesitated to give it to me, I said “if your not going to give me the right number don’t give me any number at all. We’ll just have had a good time talking to each other tonight”. Well that got her nervous and I got the right number! Elaine didn’t think I was Jewish because this was the first Bar Mitzvah I had attended. I had to explain to her that my Mom was Jewish and so was I. To be quick about it, we were engaged within a few weeks and married in April 1970. We got married by as Jews and settled in to raise a good traditional, non-kosher keeping Jewish family. We were living in Enfield, CT when our Son started Sunday school. We had become members of an Orthodox synagogue through some friends and because we liked the Rabbi and his wife. I decided to keep ahead of our Son and started to learn to read Hebrew. One thing lead to another and the Rabbi convinced me that, at the age of 30, I should make my Bar Mitzvah. So here I was, a Bar Mitzvah “boy” at the age of 30! I was to soon learn that this would be the second time my Jewish Grandfather had been in a Synagogue! He was never Bar Mitzvahed and had been in a Synagogue for his wedding and my Bar Mitzvah! Click here for some pictures of Bob as a Bar Mitzvah "boy". We continued to keep a Jewish home and moved to Nashua, NH where I became involved in the local Synagogue (there was only one in town at the time) and wound up teaching a first grade Sunday school class and being active in the men’s club. Having never grown up myself I had a great time with the first graders! We left Nashua, NH for Orange, CT, then to Cherry Hill, NJ and onto Austell, GA (Atlanta). The move to Atlanta was traumatic. I had lost my job in NJ and was officially declared a “federally dislocated worker” due to the cold war peace dividend of unemployment within the defense industry. Our house worth less than the mortgage and we wound up giving it back to the bank for $1 buy doing a “deed in lieu of foreclosure”. I wound up with a job whose salary was 30% less than what I was making in NJ and with less responsibility. But we were able to buy a 5 bedroom house with a no down payment, VA insured mortgage. Something positive did come out of my time in Vietnam after all! So we started over again after 20 years of home ownership. During the stay in Atlanta, both our fathers died. We both wrestled with dealing with losing our fathers. In 1997, Elaine came to me saying, “something is missing in our lives, I think that Jesus is Messiah and we should find a place to worship.” I told her that I had never completely given up my belief in Jesus as Messiah, even though we had been living as Jews. Inside I never really thought he wasn’t the Messiah. We had not been members of a Synagogue since leaving CT. NJ was to expensive (so we thought) and although we had gone to a couple of Atlanta Synagogues but hadn’t joined. We didn’t feel comfortable with them or how we were accepted. So I searched the web for a place where we could still be Jews but that accepted Yeshua as Messiah. I searched for “Jews for Jesus” and Messianic Synagogues and found a reference to Beth Hillel in Roswell, GA. We called and left a message. Within 20 minutes Rabbi Robert Solomon called us back and we were on the phone for hours. We attended the next Friday night Shabbat service, the first praise and worship type service we had ever seen. Elaine didn’t move during the service and I was nervous. I had enjoyed it and sang along, but Elaine was fixed in place. As we walked back to the car, I cautiously asked her, “What do you think?” She replied, “I loved it! We’re home! |
