KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
would say, “Look, I was successful with the way I did things until now. Why should I start doing things differently?” To her credit, my wife was against my working with her father from the start, and she was right. Telling my wife that she was right was difficult. We tried not to hurt Phillip’s feelings; I ascribed my leaving to the fact that all the walking around required to do the job was problematic for me. We parted ways with no hard feelings and I looked for another job. We lived with Ruthie’s parents for a few months until we got our own apartment. When you live in someone else’s home, you have to conform to their way of life, but we were young and had our own ideas about how we wanted to do things. So we decid- ed to move into our own apartment, not too far away from their home. Our son, Bennett William, was born about ten months after we were married. We named him after my father, Baruch, and Ruthie’s grandfather William. We chose the name Bennett because it means “blessed” in Latin, which is the meaning of Baruch in Hebrew. Ben was born on Ruthie’s birthday, April 9. We took to parenthood naturally and did what we had to do. We tried to give our children, first Bennett and later Elizabeth, a proper education. Bennett attended the Pride of Judea Nursery School, and then kindergarten and first grade at a yeshiva located in a trailer on Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn. We liked the rabbi there. I worked not too far away from home, and every time Ben was in a school performance, I went to see it. Usually, I was the only father amongst many mothers. I enjoyed being able to attend. I started my independent career in the United States working for a real estate broker in Borough Park. I got my sales license, but the job was far from ideal. The broker turned out to be dishonest, and, since most real estate business is conducted in the afternoons, eve- nings, and on weekends, it interfered with my family life. I started thinking about making a change. I saw a help-wanted ad in a Jewish newspaper for a part-time bookkeeper. They hired me on the spot. The job was at a catering
204
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online