Bernard Axelrad Scholarship Fund

The final leg of our trip to Spain, France and Israel ended in Jerusalem, my favorite city in the world. Not only is Jerusalem a fascinating place on its own right, but there resides two of our four children and five of our six grandchildren which adds further luster to this Holy city.

I always experience a spiritual renaissance in Jerusalem which elevates and inspires like no other place.

While normally I do not frequent shuls in my travels, on this trip I was still saying kaddish for my beloved mother and a daily visit to a synagogue was a must wherever possible. In Spain it was impossible, in Bordeaux, it was improbable and in Jerusalem it was a snap. Every other street had a synagogue with daily morning and evening services and I had my choice of Ashkenazi or Sephardic - sometimes on the same block, one behind the other.

When I went to daily services at our Congregation Mogen David we often had difficulty obtaining the 10 necessary for a minyan and most of those in attendance like myself were saying kaddish. So imagine my surprise and delight to find 40 or more attending a mincha-maariv weekday service - and I would often be the only one saying kaddish.

While neither of my children residing in Jerusalem are observant by any stretch of the imagination, I was pleased to discover how Jewish they were by reason of living in a Jewish environment. All Jewish holidays (Chanukah and Purim included) and rituals (like marriage and the bris) are observed according to traditional halacha as a matter of course. If the kids are not going to school during the whole week of Pesach, or Succoth or Chanukah, it sure is brought home to them that this is a special period.

A touching example of that occurred every Friday afternoon in Jerusalem when a siren would sound to notify of candle-lighting time and our 13 month old twin grandsons would run pointing to the Shabbat candles that their mother was about to kindle.

Such are some of the differences when living in a truly Jewish land.