My mom taught Talmud to women, made sculptures, painted, played accordion and became a partner/CPA at a firm in DC … I mean, she was badass. I see her in my kids and I’m thankful for that. I can’t not tear up just writing even this little bit about her. I’m just trying to stay in the Don’t Block Your Blessings space and it’s been healing. Much thanks to each person who does a video, it’s helped more than you can know, and of course not only me, but all the people who keep messaging me about this project. Love y’all!
If you would like to read more – I thought I should share something about my mom, since this project is in her memory. Her parents moved to Israel around 1927, she grew up making art and music. She was the oldest and played mother to her younger siblings. In her 20s, my mom worked with special needs kids doing art therapy, her medium was sculpture and illustration. After meeting my dad in Israel, she moved to America and became an au pair in Chicago where he lived, they then got married and moved to New York where she studied Talmud at JTS, then moved to Miami shortly after to become the Rebbetzin (a term she disliked) at the University of Miami. As my dad enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a Chaplain, they moved to San Diego, Japan, South Carolina, Italy, Illinois, Maryland.
She took courses at whatever university was local & accumulated enough credits to sit for the CPA exam and went on to rise to the top of her profession. At the time when she took the CPA exam, Even though she started learning English only in her mid twenties, she succeeded in passing all four parts of the CPA exam on her first try, a rarity. She joined various firms and then eventually became a named partner in a public accounting firm in Bethesda, MD. It is rare for anyone to have such a strong hold on both the right and left sides of their brain, but my mom was not just anyone as everyone who came by to console us in our time of mourning said what made her so unique was that she was such a strong woman, but at the same time had such a soft and loving side to her, making all that came in contact with her feel warm. I learned almost everything from my mother by just seeing how she navigated and loved the journey of it all. We connected on so many things, but one of the most special was going to concerts together; two in particular stood out – one was Buena Vista Social Club. And the other was seeing McCoy Tyner at the Blues Alley in D.C.; I had him sign the cover of my all time favorite album which he was such a big part of with John Coltrane, “A Love Supreme.”