Thursday, April 30, 2009

the bris

My brother's child had his bris on Memorial Day so we headed on down to jlem for the festivities. There is a dichotomy of emotions involved when memorial day meshes with a happy occasion, as you have to intertwine the seriousness of the day and the sensitivities of the people remembering their lost ones along with the happiness of the day.

The child was named Shoham Amitai. In my brother's speech he said that he didn't want to name after a dead person and especially not after someone who died so young, so he hinted at a friend of his who was killed in action during the Lebanon war, whose name was Amichai. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the name had to signify both Holocaust Day (the day of birth) as well as Memorial Day (the day of bris). Though my brother did not mention it (and probably doesn't know), the name Shoham hints at the holocaust as the Shoham Geriatric Center in Pardes Hanna is the home to the larget number of first generation Holocaust survivors in Israel.

May baby Hammy be zoche to Torah, Chuppah and good deeds.

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