I am as Askenazi as they come.

When I was a child, a neighbor told my mother that I resembled Shirley Temple.

“Vere ist Shirley Temple?” my Romanian-born Yiddish speaking mother asked.

Life in my hometown, Borough Park, Brooklyn was very insular. Everyone was a “berg, stein, thal or witz”. When a few Yemini Jews moved in I was amazed. Where was Yemen?

I never met a Syrian Jew. I later learned that there was a large........

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