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Blog, schmog! So, now I’m a guest blogger? What do I know about this blogging?
Well, here goes: I’m nothing if not adaptable. Warsaw. London. New York. Israel. I’ve made my way for 96 years. Pretty successful in business. Personal life? A few relatives, friends, a lot of acquaintances. I stayed busy. After I lost Elisabeth, no one could compare, so there was never a wife, no children. But at least I had Lily; I could be like a father to her. And a grandfather to her kids. Such a blessing that’s been in my life.
So, that night, when Lily came over to the house and told me, who could believe it? I was stunned. All of a sudden, after so many years, the di Salamone Seder plate shows up in front of her eyes at an auction? Then–poof–just like that, it’s gone again?
There were many things I knew about Rena. She was born in Shanghai to parents who had come there from Russia about the time my grandmother came to the US and for the same reason–to escape pogroms. Her family, like most of the Russian community, lived in Shanghai’s French Concession, and she and her sister attended the French School, where she began to learn the seven languages she eventually spoke. Their father was a writer, magazine editor, and active Zionist; the mother owned a children’s shop. The family left China and went to Israel in 1949. There Rena met and married Hannan, whose business led them to temporary homes in Korea, the Philippines, and Japan before retirement to the 