I was born in Brooklyn and grew up in the Flatbush section, in the shadow of Ebbets Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and across the street from beautiful Prospect Park. I was an only, but not a lonely child, who lived in a small four room apartment with my immigrant parents Ben and Selma, and grandparents, Oizer and Nehoma. Our local synagogue, the Prospect Park Jewish Center was down the street. Erasmus Hall High School and the park were my teen home away from home. After graduation I decided, with the encouragement of my parents, to go to and graduate from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, now the Tandon Engineering school of NYU. Our son Barry, (Sarah’s husband), has been a Professor at Tandon for many years, and Josh, our Grandson ,is a computer science major at Tandon.

After graduation in 1956 I moved to Connecticut to work for Pratt and Whitney, a division of United Technologies, earned a second engineering degree at Rensselaer Poly, and retired after 39 years in the nuclear and gas turbine engineering fields. Early during my employment, shortly after the Korean conflict ended, I did a brief stint in the Army Corps of Engineers to fulfill my ROTC service obligation. Four years after graduation I married my fantastic partner for life, Caroline (60th anniversary this June 4th). By the way, Caroline and I met after Caroline’s father gave my uncle (who had seen Caroline in my future father in laws car) their phone number; I called!! After a 2 year courtship we settled in the Hartford area and were blessed with three children, Barry, Neil and Diana. Neil, Diana and their loving spouses, and families, are in the Bay area with our five outstanding male grandchildren, Ben, Jonathan, David, Elijah and Zeke.

My father and mother were my role models. My Jewish identity was all around me with Kosher butcher shops, lots of pickle barrels and delis, Jewish friends and extended family. All of this was reinforced by my fathers’s unbelievable biblical knowledge, wisdom, survival history, and my mother’s kindness, warmth and survival history. On the High Holidays I was surrounded, in cramped seating, by my father, my grandfather and my uncle in a small, sweaty Orthodox synagogue. The body smells of my family and of the men in their frayed suits is still with me today. But now it is a sweet reminder of the power of family and community praying together and feeling secure and safe.

\When we lived in Connecticut, right after our marriage, Caroline and I joined the newly formed and growing synagogue, B'nai Sholom in Newington. We became active in all aspects of synagogue life with our community for 40 years. In our Newington synagogue community we had the pleasure of seeing a young student Rabbi, Rabbi Prouser, brother-in-law of our own Rabbi Mark, become our Rabbi while I was President.