Jews "Kidnapped from Birth"

In the "desert" of Southern Florida you find many many Jews who have suffered a drought of Judaism, since they were born. Many with Jewish mothers don't even realize they are Jewish. Octogenerians abound who haven't once in their many years on Mother Earth donned a pair of phylacteries. Ask them if they ever put on "tefillin", and they'll think it's a brand of sun lotion.

Jewish education to a Florida Jew has nothing to do with anathema. It's simply a matter of having been "kidnapped from birth" by a foreign culture. These people never broke away from Judaism. They simply never got exposed to the real thing. Their lives began with Gentile-like culture, continued with Gentile-like culture, and never knew anything else. They suffer from sheer Americanism.

But, at least, when they get rescued and are given some water of Torah to drink, it may revive them enough to seek to quench their thirst, for thirst they surely have. For a Jewish soul cannot achieve tranquility without some divine intimacy, no matter how many baccalaureates or degrees trail after his name. A Jewish soul not anchored in Torah feels itself being tossed around on stormy waters like a rudderless ship.

These pictures are from a fellow, an emissary of the Rebbe, who, undaunted by what people might think, reaches out to these Jews, doing his best to touch them with some Jewish love.

Dr. J. Berman of Sarasota wasn't embarrassed to show his Jewish pride in public at the airport in front of hundreds of travelers. Everyone there looked in amazement.

It created a chain reaction. Here is another Jew, an attorney from Tampa, in the airport, on his way to a nephew's Bar-Mitzvah in New Jersey. He was so inspired by what he witnessed, he decided to do it himself.

Iris sees her husband get "wrapped" for the first time in his life, at age 80!

The girl to the right, from Sarasota, just discovered she was in fact Jewish. She got interested in what we were doing. So I showed her the internal parchment scrolls inside the tefillin and explained to her the spiritual act of the Bar-Mitzvah. She then revealed to me her mom was Jewish. She never experienced anything of Jewish nature. As we parted ways I wished her well in discovering her newly-discovered identity. She is another typical Jewish girl from the Tampa Bay area.