Third generation

Nick stood in the laundry room, all six feet of him towering over me, his hand cupped as if it were holding a tiny fragile bird.  I was mindlessly folding laundry when he leaned toward me and said, “Mom, can you untangle this for me? I want to wear it.” In his hand lay his Star of David on a silver chain, the chain tangled in a massive series of little knots. I was surprised to see it; Nick had received it as a gift for his Bar Mitzvah. He was now a strapping 20 year old home for the winter holiday before leaving for his junior semester in Madrid.

I grabbed a pin and gently laid the necklace on top of the dryer. He waited patiently as I  wiggled the needle back and forth until the knots began to loosen. I separated the strands and was able to straighten the chain and slide the Star of David to its center. I held it up to show him. “Great, Mom,” he said, “Can you put it on for me?” He turned his back toward me and I thought about the last time I had put it on for him, how I didn’t have to stretch, his small frame easily within my reach. I kept the reflection to myself, as comments from mom about how tall he had gotten or how handsome he was were generally received with a scowl or roll of the eyes. “Thanks,” he said, and took off to the gym for his daily workout.

I wondered what had possessed him to suddenly want to wear the necklace and display his religion to the world. He had always been the more traditional of my kids; he loved the rituals of the Jewish holidays. He was the only one who remembered to light the Chanukah menorah all eight nights, and had even taken the Birthright trip to Israel two summers ago. As Jews, my husband and I felt it was important for our children to know their history and to have some type of humanistic training. Mostly, we wanted them to understand  “tikkun olam  ” (literally, “world repair”) a Hebrew phrase that suggested humanity’s shared responsibility to heal, repair, and transform the world and to pursue social action and justice. Our kids attended Jewish preschool and Hebrew school and each had chosen to become a Bar Mitzvah, or a man, in the Jewish tradition. We weren’t religious, and by the time Nick reached high school we had moved from New York to a southern California beach town and merely celebrated the major Jewish holidays, and only when it was convenient in our busy lives. Nick was always the one who prodded us to take the time to observe and celebrate.

As I moved a pile of laundry over to the dryer, I began to worry about Nick’s sudden interest in wearing his Star of David, as he had clearly forgotten about it for years.  I am the daughter of Holocaust survivors. My paternal grandfather emigrated from Germany in 1939 after the Nazis destroyed his mercantile business and made him burn his synagogue’s prayer books and Torah. After that, became an atheist. He repeatedly said that if God existed, he would not have let six million Jews die. For the rest of his life, he never set foot in a synagogue.

My father, who passed away when Nick was still small, went to temple, not because he believed, but because he was superstitious – he went “just in case God exists.”  He had survived the war in Germany and France, mostly by his wits and luck. He worked in a delicatessen directly under Nazi headquarters in Paris, pretending to be a French Christian and not letting on that he spoke fluent German. Later, he and four others jumped off the back of a train headed for Auschwitz because he’d rather be shot in the back than gassed to death. He was hiding in the woods in France with my mother surviving on what they could catch or grow when the war finally ended.

When my parents immigrated to the United States they brought with them the psychological trauma and damage of war. My father’s paranoia never left him. My sister and I were “gifted” with the symptoms of trauma transmitted from the surviving generation to their offspring. We were raised with the legacy of the second generation, the children of smoke and skeletons. We were taught that the world was an unsafe place, to not enjoy the present moment but instead to worry and anticipate the terrible things that were likely to happen in the future. To keep us safe, we weren’t permitted to stay at a friend’s house or go trick or treating or travel beyond the confines of our neighborhood. We were required to attend college locally and live at home. For my parents, travel away from home posed so many risks that they would not even consider our pleas to live on a campus.

From an early age, I rebuffed my parents’ attitude in my head while outwardly obeying their directives so as not to upset them any further. I understood how they had come to feel and act as they did, but I promised myself that I would raise my children differently. I didn’t want them to view every new encounter with suspicion and hypervigilance, as I had been taught  to do.  And I had been mostly successful. Their childhoods were filled with exploration, vacations, discovery and the opportunity to travel. I encouraged them not to worry and to anticipate that things would work out for the best.

Folding the last piece of laundry, I thought about Nick’s going to Madrid wearing the Star of David around his neck. I suddenly became frightened. Maybe he shouldn’t go. Or at least not display his religion. I was afraid for the well being of my child. I didn’t trust that he would be safe. The massacre by Islamist terrorists at the headquarters of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, the city from which my parents emigrated, and the deadly jihadist attack on a kosher market 25 miles across town made the half million members of Europe’s largest Jewish community fear for their lives. The smaller, targeted attacks and anti-Semitic harassment that had been going on underreported in Paris were suddenly in the limelight. If Jews weren’t safe in Paris, would my child be safe in Madrid? I couldn’t help but think back to how quickly anti-Semitism had last spread through Europe.

A mother’s first instinct is to protect her child. Having been born from the amniotic fluid of grief and loss, I had so far successfully fought off the inheritance of paranoia and fear.  If I chose not to intervene was I allowing my child to assume a level of risk he was unable to judge for himself? Was I doing it to prove that I would not transmit trauma to the third generation?  After living openly as Jews in New York and Los Angeles, the largest communities of Jews outside of Israel, do I allow my child to put himself at risk in Europe, the same Europe where so many people suffered and died? President Hollande of France, recognizing that Islamists terrorists are targeting his Jewish citizens, has put 10,000 soldiers on the streets of France. Nonetheless, hate has once again put down roots in Europe. Do I tell my child not to wear his Star of David outside of the US, and to hide who and what he is?

I thought about it long and hard. My passing on the fear, the suffering, and the need for constant vigilance against anti-Semitism needs to be balanced with teaching my child to be the guardian of all human rights and to encourage him to raise his voice against all instances of brutal inhumanity. To encourage him to practice tikkun olam, I need to believe that he will survive, as his grandparents and great grandparents did, by using his intelligence and instincts. I believe we have given him strong roots, and I know my job as his parent is to let my baby bird spread his wings and fly.

I just wish that I believed that some God would protect Nick and keep him safe.

Evelyn Block, former Editor of Let Life In, is a Los Angeles based writer whose stories have appeared in literary magazines and popular websites. She is the author of a children’s book, September 11, 2001: A Day in History. A huge Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac fan, in her spare time Evelyn is a roller derby referee known as “Stevie Fleetwheels.” She can be reached at Sendblock@aol.com.