Big, Bad, Blonde Shiksa - Part 2

Continued ...

So, I returned to Judaism.  I started to take classes and establish relationships at the local reform temple.  Oddly, my mother didn't try to stop me.  I remember my Jewish grandfather calling my rabbi to explain the details of my situation so the rabbi could understand it all better.  The rabbi later told me that my grandfather pleaded with him to take care of me and look out for me.  (I am crying as I write this!)  I was grandpa's little girl.  I was the first Jewish grandchild in the family.  You can imagine ...

Well, getting back to my mother.

I used to hate my mother.  I had NUMEROUS issues with her.  Only waaay later in life did I forgive her and come to understand and feel compassion for her, her life, and her choices.

My mother loved my father until the day she died.  She wouldn't admit it, but she did.  Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and hear her crying while she was drunk, talking to one of her friends long-distance, talking about my dad.  She kept pictures of him (which I now have) and maintained a relationship with my grandparents until they passed away. 

Did she change herself much or her identity in order to be married to a Jewish man? 

I do remember how her speech was peppered with Yiddish words until the day she died.

And she could cook a Jewish pot roast that was right up there with that of both my Jewish grandmother and Jewish great grandmother. 

In the beginning, she tried to keep a kosher kitchen, but as I mentioned in Part 1, it didn't work out too well :)

She agreed to raise her children Jewish, which is HUGE for a believing Catholic woman.

She kept the name "Levine" until she married my step father.  And despite making us Catholics, she didn't attempt to change our names.

All this in a post World War II America.  And after all that, she ended up divorced anyway. 

Hmmm ...

Well, time for some photos:

Here's a Valentine's Day card my father sent to my mother.  After she died, I found it in her drawer where she kept all her treasured memories.  The middle is made of satin cushion:

Here's a picture of my dad and a few of his service buddies.  My dad is the one kneeling down in the foreground. 

My dad's aunt, uncle, and grandparents.  Aunt Julia is in the back.  My great grandparents Jake and Fanny are in the middle, and Uncle Sammy is in the foreground, sometime in the 1940s.

My father and stepmom when they got married.

Another image of my dad.



My parents on one of their trips to Pennsylvania:



My mom holding my brother, and my dad and me: