Part: 1234         Session: 12345         Page 308309310311312313314315316317318319320321322323324325326327328329330331332333334335336337338339340341342343344345346347348349350351352353354 of 512

It's just ironic.

-- but it was really a demonstration and an effort by my father who insisted on our going to Sunday school to maintain our Jewish heritage, although he himself wasn't particularly religious. We observed the high holy days, for example, by staying out of school those days and going to services with one or more family members.

Well, it's a very fine education. Let's face it.

Well, of course, you didn't get much real education going once a week on Sundays for two or three hours. I learned the rudiments of Hebrew, I will say, and I can still recite a lot of the prayers in Hebrew, which is more than most of my contemporaries in my family could do. Both my brother and I won gold medals or something on our confirmation and my father took great satisfaction in that. He did everything possible to emphasize that we were Jews by religion and heritage, and were not in any sense trying to hide it; but were strongly American in language, outlook and nationality.

He was so seriously a patriotic American that he insisted on enrolling in the Army in World War One after the United States entered the war in 1917. My father who was nearly 56, enrolled in the National Guard because he was too old to get into active service in the regular army. He enrolled in the New York National Guard and served in it. One of my earliest memories of him is as a private in uniform, on guard duty at the 7th Regiment Armory. He simply wanted to get somehow into military service because the United States was in a war, and finally the exertion was so great that I remember he finally had to be