Comes the Millennium: It's Still Tough to Be Jewish!

100 Years in the Life of an Immigrant Family

The stories begin over 100 years ago in Sokolka, Poland, when my father escaped via an underground route, from his forced conscription into the Czar's Russian Army. The stories continue through the ensuing decades after he immigrated to America. The anecdotes describe how the family coped with the ever present stress and accommodations to their Jewishness. The tales reflect how my wife and I, collectively shared the joy and sadness in our family affairs, our career choices and achievements. Told in chronological order, the stories from my premature birth in 1913 to the 21th century, reveal the foibles, the fortuitous events and experiences during the many years when I was an officer in the U.S army. The experiences also describe my years as a clinician, an educator and research scientist. I relate how I encountered and coped with both professional accolades and overt anti-semitism from medical and dental colleagues here in America and abroad. The stories end with an ambiguous tale of the concerns of Jews in America, in Israel, and in the world at large.