Blogger and CEO of the American Jewish Committee David Harris explores the tortured route many Jewish couples are forced to take towards marriage.

Jewish Unity: Call Me Naïve
by David Harris

When I was growing up on the West Side of Manhattan, I recall elderly men from Jerusalem ringing our doorbell a couple of times per year. They were pious, and they were raising money for their institutions in Israel.

My mother and I lived alone, and, as a working woman, she had very limited disposable income, but she never let them leave empty-handed.

When I asked her why she would give money to people who, it was obvious, lived a very different lifestyle than ours, and why she never asked probing questions about the organizations they represented, she would simply say, in effect: “They’re Jews. We’re Jews. We need to support one another. Hitler made no distinction among Jews. We all were targeted for annihilation, irrespective of our beliefs, clothing, dietary habits, whatever. Why should I make a distinction?”

My mother survived the Holocaust. I took her words seriously. Indeed, I took them to heart and have sought to put them into practice on a daily basis. If we really are one people, then, whatever our differences, we need to act as one people.

Forty-two years ago, I joined the Jewish communal world, getting started in Rome and Vienna, the two transit points in Europe for Jews able to leave the Soviet Union and plan new lives beyond the grasp of the communist world.

Full text here.