Jack Chaim Doppelt

My dad came to the U.S. before WWI and retained a quaint, stiff, accented English in his speech and writing. He became an orthodox rabbi about the time Jewish life was evolving into a more relaxed reform culture. He didn’t get a synagogue pulpit and went into the family leather goods business.

By the time I came along almost 30 years later, he’d abandoned most pretenses of a Jewish home. My mom was the one who kept the traditions alive. My dad’s advanced age made it hard for us to do many of the father-son activities of the era. No catch in front of the apartment, no bike riding, no hiking, no camping. We played tennis, just him and me. I cherished it and made the tennis team. He died when I was in college.

Much of my dad’s past remained a mystery to me. Family secrets can be affixed tight with super glue. I discovered in casual encounters with people that my dad was something special once upon a time.

“Are you Marcus Doppelt’s son?” someone asked me. “You know that he was a Talmudic scholar.”

Not while I was alive, I thought. I confirmed this by cracking open a corner of the family secrets. I also discovered that my mom and dad were first cousins. My mom had me, an only child, when she was 47. As I’ve often said, I’m about as good as I could have been.

Not many family mementoes of my dad exist. I’ve preserved the few that do. One cluster has been up on a wall wherever I’ve lived. They commemorate my dad’s “smichas,” a Hebrew word. I doubt I’d know the meaning of if it didn’t mark my dad. It refers to the ordination of a rabbi, and it means learning, or someone you can rely on because of his learning.

The other is the family “cose” or Kiddush cup that my dad used for special occasions like Friday night Shabbas dinner and particularly on Passover, when he shined. He’d take a sip and pass it to my mom and me.

I take it off the shelf to use on those occasions, too. I take a sip and pass it along to my wife and kids.

 L’chaim, Dad.