Preface
O nly as you mature and gain perspective on life do you realize what was unique and different about your childhood. Being Aharon Golub’s son, my life was necessarily impacted by my fa- ther’s life history. As I was growing up, I realized that in certain respects, my experiences were different from those of my friends. Some differences were superficial. For example, as a young child, I came to realize that sports played only a small part in our family life. My father did not know or care about the primary pastimes of American boys, baseball and football, which I attributed to his growing up in Poland and then living in Israel. Also, his feet caused him a lot of pain, so though he was quite a good bicycle rider, he did not participate in other sports. When he went swimming, he always wore sneakers. Our home was filled with the sounds of many languages. My dad would speak in English if all of us were to be includ- ed in a conversation, Yiddish if my mother was to be includ- ed but not my sister or me, and Hebrew if even my mother was not part of it. On rare occasions, he spoke in Russian or Polish. Although I never heard it myself, people told me my father spoke English with an accent. They sometimes tell me that I do as well. Visitors frequently stayed in our house for extended periods of time. My father’s cousins from Montreal and California would of- ten visit. His Argentinean cousins would come for weeks as they sought out the latest in New York fashion to bring home to their customers. I remember watching with fascination as they sipped maté out of a gourd. Often visitors from Israel stayed with us. My
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