A State of Belonging

In this last excerpt, Boris discusses what it means to be "100% Jewish."
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(Do you feel like you have a very different life?)

Than they do?

(Not only because you live in the States and they live in Salvador, but the fact that you’ve adopted or really embraced your Jewish roots?)

Well, no, not necessarily, because I don’t feel that much difference. I don’t think that religion separates me from people. My dearest friend could be Catholic. My dearest friend could be a Buddhist. I don’t think that how he feels about God and about, you know, the origins of life and everything are going to make any difference. So I don’t think the fact that I’ve gotten closer to the Jewish religion has made me more distant from my sister. Absolutely not. Religion has really never, ever been an obstacle in my relationship with her.

(Do you remember any cases—I mean, you had an interesting childhood growing up religiously, back and forth a little bit, but do you remember any instances of anti-Semitism that you experienced?)

As an infant, a teenager?

(Any time.)

Yeah, there’s one particular funny story which actually goes both ways. In 1965, I was asked by the mother of my girlfriend, who was Jewish—in Washington, I was in Washington—I was asked by this lady if I could drive her to Cleveland, (that was not around the block) because she didn’t want to fly and she had a bridge tournament. And of course, since I was the son-in-law, supposedly, I said yes, and I drove all night to take her to Cleveland. And on that trip, she said, “Boris, I like you so much. You’re such a nice boy. It’s too bad you’re not Jewish to marry my daughter.” That was the opposite of anti-Semitism.

Then, about three years later, graduated from the University of Colorado, I had gone back to El Salvador, started working, started dating a girl, Catholic, and one particular week, she disappeared. Called her house. “She’s not here.” “What do you mean?” “She’s in Santa Ana with her grandmother.” “Well, what’s the phone number there?” To make a long story short, for a whole week—I could not get in touch with her. So she comes back a week later, and I said, “My God, what the heck happened? I have been trying to get in touch with you. I was desperate.” She says, “I’m so embarrassed, but I have to tell you. My grandmother, she doesn’t want me going out with you because you’re Jewish.”

I mean, that was a slap on one cheek and a slap on the other cheek in a matter of two or three years which made me realize what it is to be the product of a mixed marriage. Things like this don’t happen to a lot of people, you know? When you’re a Salvadoreño católico, blah-blah, that’s what you are. That’s it. If you’re a Jew, you’re a Jew, and your father and mother, that’s what you are. But when you’re half and half, you meet people like this in life that make you realize what you are is half and half. And I do keep that in my mind, very much. I mean, as much as I like the Jewish religion as a religion—and the traditions of the Jewish religion are beautiful, and I embrace them and I like them—but when it come to the more maybe racial or citizen aspect or whatever the mixture of the two produces, I’m still not comfortable, and I still feel I’m fifty-fifty. And I have to, because that’s the way the world perceives it.

Somebody might say, “Who cares how the world perceives it? It’s how you perceive it.” Well, it’s not that way. I still feel that you live around people and you have to know exactly what you are. And in a way, that’s why my wife converted to Judaism, to make my kids Jewish. In spite of the fact that she was originally Catholic, and that I was half, our kids, from the early age of ten, started getting a Jewish education in Miami. They both had their bat and bar mitzvah. They both consider themselves Jewish. Now, my daughter married a non-Jewish young man, and her kids are being brought up Jewish and they go to a Jewish school. So Judaism in the family has continued, mainly because of my wife, not so much because of me.

My daughter, I think, identifies much, much more and feels more comfortable being Jewish. My son, I think is more aware of things like I am, although he’s Jewish legally. I think he’s a little more aware of the fact that there are differences between people that come from a completely Jewish home and people that don’t.

(So that was important to you, to raise your kids Jewish?)

To me, it was not important. To my wife it became important, because she wanted to give them the identity that I didn’t seem to have or that I didn’t have, which is good.. They’re comfortable, more so than I have ever been. —When I have been asked, “Are you Catholic or Jewish?” throughout my life, my answer varied. If it was in a Jewish crowd, I was Jewish. If it was a crowd that was not Jewish , then my answer was not clear, like a chameleon effect, you know? Hiding from things that were not convenient.

(But you felt like the Jews in El Salvador considered you to be Jewish?)

Not a hundred percent.

(What made you feel that? Was there an experience you had, something that made you realize that it wasn’t a hundred percent?)

The fact that they— (pause) I’m trying to think. It’s kind of difficult, because it’s something that’s definitely—I definitely felt somewhat discriminated, but it’s kind of hard to pinpoint events. I don’t seem to have any special recollection like the one story I just told you.

(How did you feel discriminated against?)

Maybe because of the comments that were made. “If your mother’s not Jewish, you’re not Jewish.” That type of comment that I heard from different Jewish families as I went there after school, for dinners, for holidays, for whatever. So it always made me feel, “My mother’s not Jewish, I’m not Jewish.” And I tried to be Jewish, but I couldn’t be Jewish, because my mother was not Jewish. That type of thing.

(But you still had these close Jewish friends, these guys that you still talked to?)

Eventually, like I said, from late high school to date, so we’re talking from the age of sixteen to date, which is forty-some years, ninety percent of my friends, my close friends, are Jewish.. I do have a couple of friends that are not Jewish. So I eventually became very much part of the Jewish community, I guess.

(And when you became friends with these people, it wasn’t like you said, “Oh, you’re Jewish, I can be friends with you”? It was more, “I’m just naturally—we have so much in common”?)

What they thought of me, you mean?

(No, when you were becoming friends with these people, like, in your later years, maybe not your friends from childhood, but now you say most of your friends are Jewish.)

They’re mostly friends from childhood. Maybe much closer friends now than they were as children, ‘cause as children, they were more in the Jewish crowd, and I wasn’t. But with time, it sort of like, it was pieces of a puzzle. It all just kind of fit together, and when I became more of a thinking age, and when my personality was maybe more formed and it took shape, I seemed to identify more, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten so close to these people. And since there was that tie from earlier childhood, and of course my father, being a member of the community and everything, it sort of helped to make me fit in, and we have been—before marriage and after marriage, we have continued to be close friends. Some are now in Miami and after twenty-six years in Miami we are still close friends.

(So those people are Jack Davidson?)

Well, Jack doesn’t live in Miami. But the people in Miami are weekend people, the people that you see on Friday nights, the people that you see on Saturday nights, people that are always with you on your birthday. These are your friends, your close friends. And my close friends here are Dick Schoening and Betty and Frank Rosenberg and his girlfriend Annie.

Frank and I were partners in the business for twenty-one years. So we would see each other daily. We continue to be very close friends. Now Jack Davidson and Roby Salomon continue to be very close. Jack and I talk daily.

(Still today?)

Still. (laughs) When he’s in New York. When he’s in Salvador, he doesn’t call that much. It’s too expensive. (laughs) But when he’s in New York, we talk daily. It’s the kind of friendship that—and with Frank I speak almost daily also, and with Dick I speak at least three times a week and consult and whatever. We’re really close friends. We are really a community, separated geographically by thousands of miles in the case of Roby in Geneva, but we’re still a community. We get together, we visit them and stay in their homes, and they come to Miami and stay in our house.

I think that one of the things that has made me get closer to the Jewish religion has been the attitude of the rabbi in the temple that we belong to, Beth Am, in Miami. Rabbi Terry Bookman, is such a welcoming person. We received the Judaism course from him before we joined the temple. He never really forced me to convert. As a matter of fact, after I told him a lot of the things I told you on a personal one-to-one conversation with him, he said to me, “You’re a Jew. Jewish friends. You have Jewish kids. You have a Jewish wife. You have a Jewish name. You’re Jewish. That’s it. Of course, at one point, if you really want to be some day a citizen of Israel, you really should convert. Otherwise, you’re fine.” It’s a Reform temple. His attitude—and every time we go to temple, he actually goes out of the way to greet us with a hug and kiss. He’s a young, forty-five-year-old man, maybe younger. A very strong rabbi, probably the largest community in Miami. He makes me feel welcome. And I think that maybe that’s something that obviously was not present in my childhood, otherwise I probably would have felt more comfortable with Judaism at an earlier age. I think it’s important. I think that welcoming attitude is just something that’ll make you close to something….....

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC