FOR MY CHILDREN

I spent the first twenty-three years of my life in Israel.  Despite coming from a good family, my childhood was not a particularly happy one.  Things had gotten off to a bad start.   While my mother was pregnant with me, her mother died after being run over by a bus.  She desperately hoped she would give birth to a daughter to name after her mother.  I became the fourth son.  I don’t remember receiving any love or affection from my mother.   I remember my father as being a loving man who lived for his children.  It was from him that I did receive love, understanding and affection.

I struggled in grammar school, and my older brothers teased and discouraged me and refused to help me with my homework.  My mother never defended me against my brothers.  If anything, she would put me down.  That still haunts me even to this day.  Then, when I was six years old, my sister was born.  She was the queen for whom my mother had been waiting.  At that point, my life became hellish, and at times I even contemplated suicide.

At the age of fourteen, I moved out of the house and into a dormitory school.  It was the best thing that had ever happened to me.  There I developed a positive attitude towards life.  After three years, I moved back home for a year before joining the mandatory army in Israel.  While at home, I took courses to prepare for my matriculation exams.  When I joined the army, I requested a posting far from home so that I could come home only one weekend a month, unlike my brothers and sister, who served near home so they could return home at night every day.

My father was a famous figure in Israel.  He was the city manager in the town where I grew up.  When I was twenty-three, my mother and I traveled with him to over a dozen countries in Europe, South America and the United States while he gave speeches to raise funds for the Israeli Red Cross and other charitable organizations in which he was involved.  There was a contact person in every country and town we visited.  The trip was supposed to be for two months, but ended up lasting three months.  It was an experience I will remember all my life.  It was special to me because it was the very first time I had an opportunity to be alone with my parents.  We depended on each other, and it gave me chance to give something back to them.  I got to know my father, and we became quite close.  Being a politician, my father had always been so busy, and I had always felt I was a burden to him when it came to my personal needs.  But on this trip, he praised and showed his appreciation for me.

The last stop on the trip was New York.  By that time, I had already missed a couple weeks of my first semester at the Israeli Technical Institute (Technion), where I was taking a two-year engineering program.  My father insisted that I stay in New York and take an English course at Queens College before returning to Israel to attend the Technion the following semester.  I had already been bitten by the “American” bug and had even made friends with some Israelis who had moved to New York, so I agreed to stay.  The date on my return airline ticket was extended so that I could complete the English course before returning to Israel.

Speaking English was a huge barrier for me.  The course I took at Queens College did very little to improve my poor knowledge of the language.  In my heart, I wanted to return to Israel and attend the Technion.  But I stuck with it, encouraged by the fact that others before me had done it.  I continued to make new friends.  I decided to apply to several colleges and soon embarked a four-year engineering program at the New York Institute of Technology.

I will never forget the first class.  I walked into a room on the twenty-first floor of a huge building.  Around me, there were people from all walks of life from many different countries speaking foreign languages I had never heard before.  I couldn’t understand a single word they were saying!  It was all so unfamiliar and strange.  I wasn’t even sure if I was in the right room.  People were coming and going and asking questions.  I sat at the back of the room, tense and anxious.  All of a sudden, a tall, skinny young man entered the room.  He was unshaven and had a long ponytail and several earrings.  His pants were a few sizes too big and his T-shirt was long and loose.  He said a few words, perhaps to introduce himself, but I wasn’t sure.  He started to write on the blackboard and everyone listened as he spoke.  Occasionally, everyone would laugh.  I smiled at him so that he would think I understo