The following essay about family values, including love, was written by Gabriel Brzail, a middle schooler, enrolled in City Congregation’s B’Mitzvah program. Students spend a year and a half researching their heritage, values and beliefs, and write on a Jewish subject of their choice, their major project. The process improves both the student’s writing and critical thinking skills, as well as his/her self confidence and overall maturity.
I have been thinking about the values I have inherited from my family. I interviewed different family members to find out about their lives and values. I have found six distinct values, some that go back three generations before me. The values are education, hard work, generosity, scientific thinking, justice, and family!
Firstly, I value education (Chinuch). Education has always been important to me because I know it’s important to my future. In fact, my mom always asks me what grades my classmates got, because she wants me to be way above the class standard. Education has been a family value for at least three generations.
My Great Grandma Judith went to a Jewish school and she liked her physics teacher. My Great Grandpa Arnold spoke a lot of languages. My mom remembers he was puzzled at how his English-speaking grandchildren were not interested in learning other languages. But they did pass onto me the value of education
I also value hard work (Avodah). Like education, hard work has been in my family for generations. In fact, my Great Great Grandparents Morris Taylor and Celia Bookatz were tailors, which meant they were sewing all day long, every day except Shabbat.
Another relative, my Great Great Great Grandpa Zysman Luksenberg had a shop in a coal mining area in Poland. They lived on top of a coal mine and for the inconvenience, they were given free coal. They sold quite a few things in their shop, and they were so successful, that they decided to finance the creation of a synagogue. They were clearly extremely religious, as were many people at that time.
Sometimes I find myself being lazy, but deep down, I know that hard work is important. Making an effort gives you purpose and a sense of achievement.
Another value I try to possess is generosity (n-dee-voot-lev). It’s important to be generous so that I can help people in need and those less fortunate than I am. My dad also feels that way about animals in need and takes care of stray cats in Brooklyn. He was one of the subjects of a documentary called The Cat Rescuers.
My grandma’s cousin, Betzalel recounted that in Poland his family did not have hot running water, but my Great Grandpa Arnold and his parents did, and invited Betzalel and his family to bathe at their place. He remembers going there when he was very young, before he escaped Europe for Israel.
My Great Grandpa Daniel and Great Grandma Rachel, who lived in Sunderland in the north of England, took in a young Polish man, who was a Holocaust survivor, and taught him his trade: watchmaking. He was able to get a job and make a living. While he was living with them, he was thrilled to discover a surviving sister, who was able to come over and join him.
When my Grandma Eve was younger, she went to meet my Great Great Aunt Rena in Israel. Rena had been married to Great Grandma Judith’s brother Chaim. Rena lived in a camp for refugees and only had a small hut with no bathroom. They had hardly anything to live on. Judith used to send her food packages and other items to the camp from London.
A very distinct value I have is the importance of scientific thinking and rationality (Madah). As a small kid my mother played me a CD by the New York group ‘They Might be Giants’ with songs about science, including one called ‘Science is Real’. Science is important as it helps us understand our world. Many people in my family are involved in science. My mom is an immunologist and now works in precision medicine, and my dad is a radio and electrical engineer. My aunt Rachel is a chemist and a science writer, my aunt Deborah studied computer science and now works in a hospital, and my great uncle Cyril is a dentist. My Grandpa loves chemistry and became a pharmacist. He told me that as a boy, his room was practically a chemistry lab and his mum was scared to go in. As said by ‘They Might Be Giants’: ‘The facts are with science’.
My fifth value is justice (Tzedek)! My family believes that all people are equal. My parents and I have attended many marches, including Women’s March, the Pride Parade, and of course the Science March. We also joined the Black Lives Matter protests.
A long time ago, when my mom was a student at Leeds University, she campaigned against apartheid in South Africa. She also visited Soviet Jewish refuseniks in Moscow, including Vladimir and Maria Slepak, who were particularly badly treated by the Soviet Union.
My last value is family (Mishpacha)! My great grandparents were the oldest people I knew. They held me in their arms when I was three months old. My great grandpa lived to 100.
My brother Elijah is the dearest person to me. He has a very rare and serious epilepsy. As a result, he has many challenges in his life, and he needs constant care. Elijah has brought us many things, including Peppa Pig. But most of all, he’s taught all of us about the value of compassion and the importance of taking care of your family.
Finally, I would like to shout out my grandma Eve who spent the last 10 years researching our family tree and has put together a detailed family history of the Brazils and Luksenbergs. She even found new family members. I have used a lot of that information in writing this paper.
In fact, we recently found out that our original family name was not Brazil, but Bazilyan. My great great grandfather Solomon Brazil, born in 1859, came from Vilnius, before emigrating to England. Bazilyan is the Yiddish name of Bazilonai, a small town in Lithuania, 200 miles from Vilnius. Perhaps previous generations of our family lived in this small town.
Through my research and interviews and my grandmother’s family tree, I have learned a lot about the depth and complexity of my family and understand better where I come from and the values that have allowed our family to succeed.
