I may have written this before, but if I have, I don’t remember. And I am sure you don’t remember. So here I go (again).

Growing up in St. Louis, I was part of a very large Reform Jewish community. My public schools in University City, Clayton and Ladue were about 1/3 Jewish. Almost everyone I knew belonged to one of the five or so large Reform temples in the city or the western suburbs. There were a few Conservative and Orthodox synagogues, but virtually no one I knew belonged to them.

My family went to High Holiday services (one day for Rosh Hashana), had seders (no more than one at home – sometimes we went elsewhere for a second), and celebrated Hanukah. My Sunday School was forgettable at best – I don’t know if I learned anything there at all; I certainly didn’t take it seriously. For my Bar Mitzvah (most of my friends did not have Bar Mitzvahs) training, it took us two years, two days a week after school to learn the Hebrew alphabet, I read a very small couple of Torah lines, a haftarah, and gave a two minute or so speech that I don’t even remember writing (maybe someone wrote it for me).

I went to a nondenominational summer camp. I didn’t belong to any Jewish fraternities or groups through high school.

When I went to college, although I did go to High Holiday services, I was completely turned off by the few events at Hillel that I went to. I seemed to have nothing on common with the Hillel kids, who had a very different Jewish identity that I did. I did take some Jewish studies type courses at college, but that was it. No Jewish extracurricular activities at all.

So how did it happen that virtually my entire extra-work life as an adult in Washington DC has been connected to the Jewish community?

I have been a Board of Directors member and an officer of two synagogues, first Temple Sinai and then Adas Israel.

I was a Board member of the Jewish Primary Day School of Greater Washington (now the Milton Academy)

For twenty years, I was a member of the Board of Directors for American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and for six years I was Treasurer of that national organization.

I am currently a Board member and the Vice President of the Haberman Institute for Jewish Studies.

I am currently the President of the Jewish Funeral Practices Committee of Greater Washington.

Outside of these organizations, the only other non-profit organizations that I have been seriously active in were connected to my law practice, when I was a member of the Governing Board of the ABA Forum Committee for Housing and Community Development, a Board member and one-time President of the National Leased Housing Association and a Board member of the National Housing and Rehabilitation Association. But all of these were history before I left the practice of law now 11 years ago.

Everything that I have done with all of these organizations has been interesting and I hope useful. But I just must repeat. I surprise myself.