Continued from Sisterhood Newsletter, December 2007

My dad was born in 1925 in Chicago and was one of two brothers. His mother died in childbirth with a third sibling, leaving his father alone to care for two young boys. Upon the death of his wife and third child, my grandfather went away for the weekend to escape his grief.  He left my father age 2, and his older brother age 4, alone in their apartment.

A relative found them alone and shortly afterwards; they were taken away from their home by social services. Upon my grandfather’s return, he knew that he could not care for his children on his own, and so he decided to leave them where social services had taken them.

My father and his brother were taken to live and to grow up in a Jewish Orphanage near my grandfather’s home. While at the Orphanage they was taught a beautiful little prayer that all the children said together before they went to sleep each night.