The Odd Couple – From Sudbury to Zion

I am in a mixed marriage, a non-practicing Catholic male of German descent, married to a secular Jewish man of British descent, who as of October 8^th, 2023, has become a fervent Zionist.

We are truly the Odd Couple.  We are not quite like the 1970’s sitcom with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall.  I’m the clean freak but have hoarding tendencies.  He’s a big picture man and can’t see the fingerprints he leaves on the fridge or windows which irritate me. This is ironic considering, as a pathologist, he spends his whole days looking through a microscope for minute changes in cellular structure.

Our daughters at our wedding September 24, 2016

When we first met, sixteen years ago, there was instant chemistry as we had so much in common.  We have similar personalities, a great interest in the bigger questions of life, and are both fathers of daughters from previous hetero marriages. Then we discovered that we were both born in the same hospital in Sudbury, a small mining town in Northern Ontario.  Serendipity.  We are only one year different in age.  We didn’t meet there 40 odd years ago as his family moved to Windsor when he was still a toddler.  I marveled at the fact that there were any Jews at all in Sudbury.  To me, the ethnic make-up of Sudbury was French-Canadian, Finns, Germans and some Poles, and then those English-speaking people with whom I had little in common.

Then I had my click-moment.  It all came together.  Silverman’s department store, Levine’s Clothing Store, Wolf’s bookstore. These were all Jewish names and therefore, proof that Jews were even in Sudbury.  I’ve since learned that Jews in the diaspora make homes anywhere where they meet no resistance.

Thomas (left) and Simon (right)

As our relationship developed, we started to realize there were differences after all.  How would our parents, all alive at that time,  react to such news?  It’s not like they hadn’t had a bigger pill to swallow when their sons came out as gay.  Both Simon and I were more worried about our fathers’ reactions.  We know that mothers pretty much implicitly look out for the happiness of their children.

Gruff Hans, a miner of 30 years, was no longer the angry immigrant.  He and his family had lost property and land upon the expulsion of the ethnic Germans from Hungary.  This was part of the collective punishment meted out on any German, Volks or Reichs, for the actions of Hitler.  He always had a chip on his shoulder about this which sometimes prompted him to entertain Holocaust revisionist ideology.  You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard him actually say – that was a bad thing we Germans did to the Jews.  An utterance, I thought I’d never hear.

Then there was the infamous and daunting Stan with his bushy eyebrows, also known as Shlomo.  He was a staunch Zionist but never took that final step of Aliyah like his brother, Harry, had.  He raised his children as modern Orthodox. When his children left home so did his extreme adherence to orthodoxy.  Shrimp managed to enter Helen’s kitchen.

Stan was so magnanimous when it came to accepting me and how he so overtly showed this.  He took his adult children, Alexandra and Simon, by surprise during my first Seder dinner with the Raphael clan.  Stan liked to make speeches, more akin to sermons, during a part of the dinner. That year, the sermon was about the expulsion of the ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe and how this fit with the Passover themes of exile and return.

That was his way of welcoming me into the family.  As I was so overwhelmed with the whole Seder dinner experience, I hadn’t picked up on it.  However, Simon explained this all to me later.

Then we discovered more linguistic similarities.  I never knew I knew so many words in Yiddish.  After discovering this shared vocabulary, Simon would often state household Yiddish expressions he suddenly remembered.  The Yiddish had undergone a transformation by a few generations of his family living in England.  Then the expression might have one last transformation depending on the level of accuracy of Simon’s memory. He would ask me if there were a German equivalent for a given phrase or if the Yiddish could be understood in German.  More often than not, it could.  Finstern was the first word we came across as it is exactly the German word as well and means dark or darkness.

Helen, Simon’s mother would use “Mitwoch un Donnershtik” which for her meant “this and that.” The German equivalent is Mittwoch und Donnerstag.   Shluf translates to Schlaf and means sleep, as in, did you have a good sleep?

3.152 meters above sea level on Montserrat in Bogotá Colombia

Simon always downplayed his Judaism. He was culturally Jewish and a complete atheist.  I never really had a position on my Catholicism. I think though, deep down I believe.  Our ethnicities were such a minimal part of our relationship.  Over the years, with my constant thirst for knowledge, I began to learn about Judaic customs and ideology.  Often when we traveled in Europe, we would visit the Holocaust museums as well as the Jewish quarters. Barcelona, Seville, Paris, Berlin, Prague.  The last was a particular highlight as I couldn’t believe how Hitler did not destroy this collection of synagogues and the oldest Jewish graveyard.

I remember looking at Simon from a distance as we visited the Typography of Terror in Berlin.  I was disturbed by a thought and couldn’t reconcile it.  Why would anybody want to kill this wonderful man, just because he’s Jewish? I’m still baffled by the intensity and ferocity of Jew Hate out there.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin, 2015

I believe my hard-core Zionism came into fruition during our two-week vacation to Israel.  You have to go to Israel to understand it.  To actually comprehend the beauty, sometimes rugged, as well as the geo-political challenges it faces.  I was drunk with being immersed in history.  Not only was I standing in the land of a culture that goes back over 3,000 years, I was also at the birthplace of Christianity.  You don’t have to be a believer to appreciate that.  The antiquity of Christianity was amazing.

The other fact that left me gobsmacked was the amount of conflict for such a small pinch of land.  That’s when I started reading up on the history and the war of independence to give credence to the revelation I made while in Jerusalem. I was old school.  From what I understood about war, from my parents’ experience about the aftermath of war.  If you pick the fight and lose, you lose the land.  That was pretty clear to me with what happened to those 12 million Germans who were forcibly moved and resettled in Germany.  C’est la vie.

A year after our visit to Israel, October 7^th cemented our destinies.  The unchecked tsunami of Jew Hate took over the world, including Canada.  Especially Canada.  A few weeks after October 7^th, Simon asked me if I would follow him to Israel.  Without a moment’s hesitation I said yes.  Aside from the fact that we both felt betrayed by the country we were born in, this wonderful man had stood by me so many times before.  There were even two health scares I had.  There would be no reason, big or small, not to follow him. We’re in this together.

It has been a tumultuous year.  We decided to renovate the house to make it renter ready.  That meant we had to undergo a big pack and purge session.  Our children should thank us that we’ve downsized beforehand, so they are not left with the onerous task when we pass.  Five months of living in different Airbnb’s, and tending to our three dogs, one of whom has medical issues, have given me no time for my art photography practice. Furthermore, I think many in the art community as well as some of the gay community would ostracize me for not following the current mainstream narrative of Wokeism. I’ve made my opinions, some of which include Zionism, quite clear.

I’ve put my camera down and I’ve picked up a laptop instead to pursue a writing career.  This has been one of the best choices in my life as this interest not only predates my interest in photography but is the greater and most fulfilling of the two.

Through our past histories together and the upcoming adventures of trying to establish a new life, I will be able to share my insights here on the Times of Israel.  Some would call me a Jew ally. My husband has said that I’m an honorary Jew because of my intense interest in Judaism.   I just call myself a human being who is following what is common sense and the right thing to do.  I will have this unique point of view as the other half of the Odd Couple.

Wedding Day.