“When we arrived in Israel, there was no community, no synagogue, and no rabbi. My father was mortified. He understood that what had happened to our neighbors was about to happen to us. The family sank into miserable poverty. We children began to misbehave and use foul language. A cousin of ours was killed in a shoot-out between rival street gangs. What saved us was our mother. After the initial shock, she realized she couldn’t rely on our father, so she gathered enough strength to act on her own. Because she is a wise, strong woman, she locked us at home so we wouldn’t stray. But when she
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