"I can't believe that it's already Christmas," said the young man in the elevator. His voice was soft and pleasant with a tinge of a spoiled boy in it. He lived in the apartment above mine and played music so loud that the walls of the aged, six floors high house, shook and trembled. Some mornings he made love so vigorously and with such youthful vigor that my ceiling wobbled for hours at a time.

"I can't believe that I'm already seventy nine," said I. By then the elevator stopped by my floor and our ways parted.

Seventy-nine years and nothing to show for it, not even a face. Whenever I watch myself in the mirror I now see a familiar image - my father's. The hard earned countenance of my own facial impression has been steadily fading away, together with memories and emotions from past days, from all those years in which, unknowingly, I have been carrying deep within the concealed, yet vocal, persona of my father. In his turn, my father, even before my birth, carried my imprint within himself, the potential me, the idea of me as an extension of his unfulfilled aspirations. We both carried deep within the memories and aspirations of our progenitors and progenies, and they all have had a voice, starting with a Stone Age Neanderthal. The virtual me probably escorted my grandfather throughout his life's long endeavors and wanderings. The grandfather whom I had never met, the grandfather who bequeathed me both his name and my own father.

Unlike my ancestors, I am childless. What I carry and nurture inside is no longer a promise of future acts and achievements but rather a dark, enigmatic, all consuming vacancy that is consistently spreading and gnawing my visage, my past, and my recollections. I represent the end of he line. I - the accidental prey of the hollow void. The character that for a while took over my life and whom I believed to be the real me, the artifact of my own doing, is slowly but consistently fading away. I now know that this character was largely shaped by unresolved scuffle. A clash between enshrouded and shadowy images that reside deep in me, striving to realize their own unfulfilled dreams, and between a persistent, but mainly unanswered, call from my own designated image. The furtive burden of past generations might have been too heavy for the prospective me to sprout, bud and flourish.

Until just a few years ago I used to wake up each morning (or noon) driven by a great expectation for what the day might bring about. To what and to whom the day would introduce me during its one and only visit to this world, and what new experiences will it carry for me in its deep pockets and wide sleeves. It was worthwhile to get up from bed just in order to find out what surprises the day had in store for me. Every morning carried with it a promise of an adventure, that had rarely, if ever, materialized, but the mere expectation left its impression upon my countenance and kept me young. My face was daily shaped anew by the fusion between the anticipation for the covert but obscure future on the one hand and a feeling of disillusionment and affront from the absence of anything significant in my vacant yesterdays on the other.

My face had been molded by the incidents I did or did not experience. Now, no longer expecting the morning new, no longer having a future, I'm losing my own countenance to that of my father. Not having any children or grandchildren to carry his name into the future, I am now bound to let my father speak and tell his story through me. A story that will by necessity will be filtered and dyed by my own experiences, biases and prejudices. In the saga of my family, my own personality will necessarily be the yardstick and the measure of all things to come.

My father was born in Bialystok, Russia. My mother and I were born in Bialystok, Poland. We came into the world in a city that within a short span of turbulent times kept changing possessors, nationalities and identities between Russia, Germany and Poland. Only the still houses, long curling streets and narrow alleys remained the same, imperturbably watching the scuttle of the frightened and bewildered inhabitants amid their walls. Years later I had a somewhat similar experience to that of my father, and more or less at a similar age, as all of a sudden, without moving anywhere else, I also found myself in a different and strange county, just by the act of crossing the short distance between the battle front and my parents home. Like my father, I also still lived in the same city, my friends were the same, that is, those who didn't perish in the Israeli War of Independence in 1948; the names of the streets and my own surname didn't change, at least for a while; nevertheless, nothing any longer was the same. The human landscape changed vastly, the conduct of the people was different and the ambiance of the place had been shaped anew by strange faces, multiple languages and a din of diverse and variegated accents. Even the laws of the newly established country were being altered continually. To some of us it took years to become accustomed to it and find our place anew in the novel settings; some, including myself, never did. Was this also what my father experienced as an adolescent, during the years that presumably shaped his personality and character? This I probably shall never know.

I was about four years old when my parents moved from Poland to Israel, from Bialystok to Tel-Aviv. In my American studio I have two postcards hanging side by side, one is a photograph of Bialystok and the other of the inchoate, still very young Tel-Aviv. Both places, with their red roofed houses look very much the same. At that time - at the beginning of the previous century, the new emigrants mainly copied and emulated what they knew best and were accustomed to, be it houses or a lifestyle. Growing up in the "first Hebrew town" in the newly settled land, I experienced thus a semblance of old Poland - its heavy cuisine, customs, pretentious conduct and ostentatious manners. Nowadays the houses of Tel-Aviv with its many high rises resemble those of a typical American city rather than those of a Polish one. Yet, I feel less at home there than ever before. Even my old high school, built in those days with the facade of a medieval fortress, exists now only in pictures and on postcards. The endearing, single or two storied houses with red tile roofs that stretched out like an honor guard in front of that studious citadel had been spirited away, together with the mind-set of the pioneers who built them, not so long ago.

My mother graduated from high school, a fact that in those days in Poland was a relatively rare event. She never ceased to remind my father of that important actuality and always drove home the fact that he had no formal education. Even so, it was from my father, and very likely, also his father, that I inherited an insatiable curiosity and a boundless urge to know and understand almost everything under the sun; an urge that by definition, and subject to the confines of my own talent, could have never been satisfied and fulfilled. An urge that forever kept me enfolded in the world of unattainable longings, wrapped in a mantle of failure and hemmed in the vacant fold of ignorance. My forbearers, unlike me, were always thrilled and elated by whatever they managed to obtain and acquire. While I constantly despaired from what I didn't yet know and understand, they quenched their thirst by the half filled section of the glass. Unlike them, I could never accomplish anything significant, but that distinction was most likely inherited more from my mother's side of the family.

My grandfather was nine years old when he found himself all alone in the wide world. He hardly ever spoke about himself, so we do not know what had happened to his parents or how they perished. Did they die because of sickness? Who took care of them in that case? Were they murdered in a pogrom by the gentile inhabitants of Yalavke, the small rural community in the heart of the mountainous forests where my grandfather was born? Where was he hiding if that was the case? Under the bed? In the closet or among the trees in the yard? What were his parents doing in that remote, God forsaken place? Were there other Jews in the place, and if so, were they also killed in a pogrom? My father took my grandfather before his death back to his birthplace and he enjoyed the mountain air, so maybe he had happy memories from his early childhood. We shall never know. All I have left from him, besides my name, is one picture and some written recollections by my father who also learned about occurrences in his father's life mostly from other people. My grandfather probably was schooled in Volkovisk, a larger city or town near by, because in Bialystok he was known as the "Volkovisker". How did he get to Volkovisk and why, and who took care of him there? Somebody must have. A psychic friend told me once that my grandfather was reluctant to embrace his children because he had been sexually abused as a child. It is very likely and may also explain his life long disdain of rabbis. I do not think that my father was ever abused. He just did not know how to embrace. The fact that my mother hated and disdained him throughout their long life together did not help. Throughout all his life he yearned that at least once my mother would place hers palm upon his extended hand. She never did. As for me, I most likely was abused by my Polish neighbor and her boyfriend when I was three or four years old. I remember that she would stretch open her underwear and I would blow out with all my might to make the "butterflies", small sheared pieces of paper, fly around her bare, broad white and ruddy buttocks. I have no recollections of "playing" with her boyfriend but I do remember that he threatened to throw me into the cage of the monkeys in the zoo, let them tear my body apart and feed the lions with the pieces. Was this experience what turned me into a most perfect "outsider," a loner with difficulty in bonding and with inability to assimilate, to play by the rules or obey authority of any kind? I cannot be sure. However, I was in my fifties when, thanks to a very warm and affectionate girlfriend I learned, for the first time, the pleasure of holding hands and hugging.

To Bialystok my grandfather came, most likely as a teenager, probably on foot. As a place of residence he picked one of the city's many synagogues. At night, on their way from work or after dinner, people often dropped in to study a bit, prior to their going home to sleep. Early in the morning people stopped by for the morning prayer. In between their visits my grandfather managed to get a few hours sleep on a bare bench, leaning his head on his clenched fists. During the daytime, and especially throughout the high holidays, people paid good money to sit on those prized benches, but at night they were worthless. He never felt rich by occupying those precious spaces. During the day he studied, by himself, finding, emotionally and symbolically, a substitute for his absent family in the common spiritual heritage of the ancient Jewish tribe. Jewish people the world over prayed more or less at the same times, studied from similar manuscripts, observed the same rituals, and felt that they belonged to a common universal brotherhood. Similar synagogues were scattered all over the globe, their shelves contained the same scriptural literature and their benches serving as a temporal resting place for peripatetic students like my grandfather, whose meager meals were customarily doled out by local landlords. In those days many men spent their days in such synagogues studying scriptures while their wives attended the family business in the market place. When given family names many were therefore called after their wife's first names, as they were known in town only as Yaffa's or Beilla's husbands. Among them he could feel that he indeed belonged. He never spoke about those days, but my father learned about it from one of the landlords who was among those who fed my grandfather in those days.

Each morning, upon waking up my grandfather found in front of him a set table, laid with all kinds of open and closed books - the traditional Jewish food of the mind. It's not likely that he ever ate breakfast except on those occasions when one of the worshipers was celebrating a family affair and after the morning prayer shared cookies and wine with everybody else in the synagogue. He studied by himself and often continued studying in this mode throughout his life. In later years he used to stay in the synagogue and study with my father and his brothers between and after the evening prayers. My father, who started working at an early age, kept the tradition of life long studying, by himself and in his own way. To some extent I also continued this practice of studying and doing things my own way. In my Israeli high school I spent much of the time perusing my hobby of sail boating instead of attending the classroom. Throughout those years I consistently refused to take any exam, saying that I came to study and not to take part in a competition about grades. I don't believe that ever in my life I bothered to compete with anybody, except with my self, that is. Only God knows why I was not thrown out of school. Some years after graduation my teacher told me that from time to time they had in the school one or two odd students with wacky mannerisms, and their policy was to let them stay, that is, if they thought them worthy of the gesture. It seems that I was among those lucky once. If any of my students ever benefited from my classes, many years later, when I became a university professor, it was mainly because I tried to teach them to think and study on their own. However, thinking of it now, I wonder whether my expression of such excessive "individualism" already at this young age, was not due, at least to some extent, to my very bad memory and life long inability to memorize dates, names and facts. The fact that I managed to graduate from a university was due to my ability to write research papers but clearly not because of my low grades in exams. That is, most likely, also the reason that in spite of my library and a good collection of index cards, I never managed to become a renowned scholar, though, a lack of any shred of ambition also may have had something to do with it.

Both my grandfathers liked learning and continued studying throughout their lives. Both refused to become rabbis, in spite of the fact that the father-in-law of my maternal grandfather was the presiding judge of the rabbinical court in Bialystok. The times had changed, new winds were blowing in the Jewish world, and both my grandparents probably sensed it. My mother's father used to study from scriptures at home and in his small material shop, where we later lived in Tel-Aviv. Not believing that I would ever bother to read any of those books, he left his whole library to the synagogue where he used to pray. Years later I bought many such scriptural books from a retired professor and added to my library many more Talmudic volumes that were left on sidewalks in the streets of Detroit, where I taught at the time. They were probably put there by family members who could not read Hebrew or Aramaic, were not interested in the content of those shabby old volumes, and after the death of their father dumped them on the sidewalk or put them in the garbage cans, together with the rest of the waste. Many years later I browsed in some books written by a few of my ancestors and was a bit shocked to discover, that some, even centuries ago, dealt exactly with the same kind of questions that interested me. Our suggested answers were, of course, very different.

As is the custom even today among orthodox (especially ultra orthodox) Jews, people looked for a bridegroom first of all among scholars. Today the "scholars" for such purposes are considered to be yeshiva students, but traditionally they were found among the peripatetic students who dwelt and studied in synagogues all over the country. Marriage used to be their main way to independence. My grandfather was no exception. He and his wife rented a room at a family home, and he started his new life giving private lessons in languages, I do not know which. After a while he learned from his brother-in-law the art of weaving, bought some machines and for a while made a good living weaving woolen blankets. Good enough to enable him to sell his business and start being a banker, that is, moneylender. By then he had a house of his own and after the death of his first wife married my grandmother. From my father's stories it seems that it was a wide and open house where poor people could always get a meal, some money and rest by the fire. On the weekends a assortment of people from all walks of life, from middle class businessmen to stout and brawny blue collar workers, dropped in for a visit and a chat about the topics of the day, news from the Turkish - Russian war and other contemporary matters. Some have just returned from the front where they served as soldiers and they shared their experiences with the friendly group. My grandfather gave to charity but was not lenient about returning loans or payments of the weekly interest. In order to secure a loan he usually took care that the cosigners on the promissory note would be reputable stingy and hard people. Such that he would not lend them a penny, but would themselves take care of the borrower if they would have to pay his debt. (The only time he gave an unusually large sum of money, without asking for a note and without guarantors, was to a person who was reputed to be very rich and honest. Years later, this very person became my maternal grandfather). In those cases when he had to give the notes for collection to the bank he signed of course his name - Borowski. It so happened, that the only other Borowski in town (where he himself was known as "Volkovisk") was a lawyer, (the father of the famous pianist). People believed that they were sued by the lawyer and usually settled their debt in haste.