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M y great-grandfather a man named Elyakim was a religious man who grew up in Czechoslovakia served in the army during World War I spent the years of World War II in a labor camp and eventually moved to Israel.

His three children a son and two daughters grew up in Communist Czechoslovakia where remaining frum was all but impossible.

When Elyakim died in 1970 not one of his children grandchildren or great-grandchildren was religious. In a photo taken toward the end of his life he is wearing a white shirt black pants and a black yarmulke and is flanked by his daughter and son-in-law who are dressed like secular Israelis. Elyakim fought to hold on to his Yiddishkeit but he did not see Yiddishe nachas from his descendants. In his own lifetime that is.

When I was 23 years old my father told me that I should marry a Jewish boy. I had never heard such a thing before and I was quite surprised. When I had attended a public school in upstate New York my best friends had been a Chinese girl and a black boy. We celebrated my bat mitzvah with a swimming party at the local Marriott Hotel pool and my diverse group of friends — boys and girls Jews and non-Jews — were part of the celebration.

“Why is it important for me to marry a Jew Dad?” I asked. “I want to understand.” “I don’t know Beth” he admitted. “I just know that it’s important.”

My father was an engineer my mother a mathematician. Both had grown up in the Communist Bloc of Eastern Europe in secular families. After their marriage my parents moved to America in search of a more comfortable life and they tried to groom me to be the fulfillment of their ultimate hopes and dreams: to be a successful and wealthy American.

After hearing that it was important that I marry a Jew I decided to go on a backpacking trip to Israel to learn about my Jewish heritage. A friend of my mother’s who worked for the Jewish Agency gave me a book of programs in Israel which I perused with great interest. In the end I chose a learning and volunteer program in northern Israel for unaffiliated Jews from around the world.

I knew literally nothing about Torah Judaism. At the first class on Judaism I attended the lecturer made reference to the Exodus and I raised my hand and innocently asked “What’s that?” I had never heard of it.

When the lecturer mentioned something about the Torah I raised my hand again and asked “What’s Torah?”

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 641)