21 Elul 5730 (Sep­tem­ber 22, 1970)

Dear Mira, Pen­i­na, Esti, Devo­rah, Rivkaleh, Zeha­va, Tzip­pi, Shoshi, Aliza, and Dina — Shalom!

It was not so long ago that we all saw each oth­er in Israel, under hap­py cir­cum­stances, and promised to stay in touch from now on — no excus­es. So, here I am writ­ing a Rosh Hashana let­ter, even though you’ve already heard most of my news from the horse’s mouth: I no longer live in Worces­ter but in Waltham, which is only half an hour’s dri­ve from Boston. And I’m not liv­ing in a rent­ed base­ment apart­ment but in my own house with a back­yard and a gar­den and a white pick­et fence. And, most impor­tant­ly, I’m no longer Miss Leah Moskovich, but Mrs. Leah Zuckerman! 

Yes, you all know the big news: I got mar­ried! I know we saw each oth­er just two months ago, on our hon­ey­moon in Israel, but when we met at Mira’s, you all want­ed to know so many things and I didn’t have time to answer all your ques­tions, so now I’m sit­ting down to write. First things first, allow me to wish you all Shana Tova: may your new year be as sweet as a honeymoon.

Many of you asked to hear more about Jeff, and in par­tic­u­lar about how we met. I couldn’t go into detail at that big gath­er­ing, so I will now make amends and tell you every thing. We met the good old-fash­ioned way, by being set up. My land­la­dy, Mrs. Puffe­les, a warm­heart­ed Jew­ish woman whom some of you know about, was urg­ing me to meet her friend’s bach­e­lor son, an accoun­tant who was very keen to mar­ry. I admit that I was a lit­tle wary, because he’s quite a bit old­er than me (thir­ty-sev­en), but as my land­la­dy said, I’m no spring chick­en myself. Any­way, I decid­ed to give it a chance. Not only did Jeff dri­ve all the way from Waltham (more than half an hour away) to pick me up, he also brought flow­ers for Mrs. Puffe­les. I wore a navy blue dress that I’d bought at Bloom­ing­dales (blue is the new black, clas­sic yet fresh) with match­ing purse and shoes in ivory, and I had my hair in an updo. Not to brag, but I think Jeff was very taken.

We went out to a fan­cy Ital­ian restau­rant, with red-and-white check­ered table­cloths, a bot­tle of wine nes­tled in a lit­tle wick­er bas­ket on each table, and gar­lic braids hang­ing on the walls. I did most of the talk­ing, because Jeff was a lit­tle shy and I could tell he was ner­vous, which I actu­al­ly found very endear­ing. (By the way, I no longer have any trou­ble chat­ter­ing in Eng­lish. I’ve had oodles of prac­tice, and I also took a course in spo­ken Eng­lish and dic­tion at the local com­mu­ni­ty college.)

After din­ner, Jeff drove me home, and before we said good­bye (he insist­ed on walk­ing me right up to the door) he asked if he could see me again. After that, we went out almost every week. And even though it was clear to me from the start that he was seri­ous and not look­ing to play games, I was still sur­prised when, in Decem­ber, he took me to the same restau­rant where we had our first date, and after we ordered dessert, he took out a lit­tle black box, pre­sent­ed a dia­mond ring, and asked: Will you mar­ry me? 

Of course I said yes, and I put the ring on right then and there. Mrs. Puffe­les noticed it the sec­ond I walked in and she was so excit­ed. She cried out: Mazal tov! Mazal tov! Appar­ent­ly engage­ment rings are a big deal here in Amer­i­ca, even more than the wed­ding ring. Every self-respect­ing woman has an engage­ment ring with a dia­mond, or at least a sap­phire, which shouts out from their fin­ger: I’m tak­en! And indeed, when I arrived at school on Mon­day, all the teach­ers noticed and con­grat­u­lat­ed me and want­ed to know who the lucky man was, and as soon as word got around that I was engaged, all of a sud­den I start­ed get­ting lots of invi­ta­tions. Every­one want­ed to meet Jeff. Miri­am invit­ed us for Fri­day night din­ner (she also invit­ed Jeff’s moth­er because I told her he’d feel bad leav­ing her alone on Shab­bat), and Tzvi­ka and Ruthie met us in Boston (by the way, Ruthie is preg­nant; she’s due in a cou­ple of months), and var­i­ous oth­er teach­ers at school whom I’ve nev­er been very close with came up to con­grat­u­late me, and two of them asked me over with Jeff. It was very touch­ing to see how hap­py they all were for me. Miri­am did take me aside one day and ask if I was sure I want­ed to get mar­ried so soon. Mean­ing, so soon after meet­ing him. But she’s not a dis­in­ter­est­ed par­ty, because she’ll have trou­ble find­ing a teacher as good as I am on such short notice. After­ward, she was wor­ried she might have offend­ed me, and she was very apolo­getic, but I told her it was fine and promised to fin­ish out the school year. I know Miri­am is gen­uine­ly hap­py for me, because she asked who was orga­niz­ing my bridal show­er, and when I had no clue what she was talk­ing about, she announced that she would host it.

It turns out that Amer­i­cans have a tra­di­tion of throw­ing a women-only par­ty for the bride. Miri­am explained that it’s a rel­ic from when the ear­ly set­tlers in the colonies were poor and iso­lat­ed, and when­ev­er there was a wed­ding, all the women would come togeth­er to help the future bride with gifts for her home. She invit­ed all the school teach­ers, and I also invit­ed Ruthie and Mrs. Puffe­les and a cou­ple of oth­er girls I’ve met here. They each made a dish to share, and they brought me gifts: it’s cus­tom­ary to give the bride some­thing in addi­tion to the actu­al wed­ding gift. The old­er women brought house­wares, like an elec­tric hand mix­er and kitchen­ware, and the younger ones gave me a silk robe and lace panties and even a book about inti­mate rela­tions, which is a very accept­able gift for a new cou­ple here. 

The wed­ding itself was mod­est and sim­ple, just like we want­ed. It was held at Miriam’s syn­a­gogue, and Rab­bi Isaac, who is very nice and doesn’t look any­thing like the rab­bis in Israel, con­duct­ed the cer­e­mo­ny. I wore an off-white dress that was very pret­ty but not a ​“bridal gown,” and a gold neck­lace that Jeff bought me. Jeff wore a suit and bowtie, like in the movies. Mrs. Puffe­les stood beside me under the chup­pah instead of my moth­er, and Miri­am and her hus­band were our wit­ness­es and signed the ketubah. After the cer­e­mo­ny, we served a light sup­per in the synagogue’s yard — no wed­ding hall or band or any of that fuss. Just a wed­ding, pure and simple. 

For our hon­ey­moon, we went to Israel, of course. Lots of peo­ple here go on hon­ey­moons to exot­ic des­ti­na­tions like Mex­i­co or the Caribbean islands, but I knew we had to go to Israel, even though it would be more expen­sive. Jeff had always want­ed to vis­it, so he imme­di­ate­ly agreed, and it was a won­der­ful trip. Jeff met my par­ents and my broth­er and his fam­i­ly, and we criss­crossed the whole coun­try. The icing on the cake was our beau­ti­ful gath­er­ing at Mira’s house. It’s been so long since we all got togeth­er! Thank you for com­ing all the way to Jerusalem to see me, and also for the love­ly gifts. The dec­o­ra­tive ham­sas, the Armen­ian pot­tery, and all the oth­er keep­sakes are in our house in Waltham, where they serve as memen­tos from our won­der­ful vis­it to Israel.

My only regret is that the meet­ing was too short and you did not have time to get to know Jeff prop­er­ly. As I’m sure you noticed, he’s a shy man and does not feel com­fort­able in big crowds. He’s also unused to the Israeli direct­ness and the rough edges so many of our com­pa­tri­ots have. I write this to make it clear that Jeff was very hap­py to meet you all and get to know you and your spous­es, it’s just that he’s ret­i­cent and can be timid, that’s all. I hope we’ll be back to vis­it again soon and you can get to know him bet­ter. Also, it goes with­out say­ing that you’re all warm­ly invit­ed to vis­it us: Jeff and I would be delight­ed to host you. Which brings me to the ques­tions I was asked by Aliza’s hus­band, Rafi: Is this it? Am I stay­ing in the Unit­ed States? Have I offi­cial­ly left Israel for good? 

No, my friends. On the con­trary. I came to Amer­i­ca on an edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, to teach Jew­ish chil­dren who, one day, may them­selves make aliyah. As fate would have it, I met my mate here, and I can’t help the fact that although he’s Jew­ish, he’s a born and bred Amer­i­can. So yes, I am liv­ing in the Unit­ed States for now, and who knows what the future will bring? But to depict me as a yore­det, one of those peo­ple who aban­don their home­land to seek out the good life in Amer­i­ca? Noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. 

We returned from our hon­ey­moon to an agree­able domes­tic rou­tine. Jeff goes to work, while I slow­ly adapt to life as a mar­ried woman. I enjoy beau­ti­fy­ing my new house and turn­ing it into a cozy nest. I hung new cur­tains, paint­ed the kitchen, plant­ed flow­ers out front, and more. I’m also tak­ing my first baby steps in the kitchen. Up until now I bare­ly cooked even for myself, and now I’m cook­ing for two. Speak­ing of which, I will sign off to go and make din­ner for my hus­band. It still feels strange to use that term, ​“my hus­band,” and I’m not quite used to being a mar­ried woman, but I’m so hap­py! I had some won­der­ful years, packed full of expe­ri­ences, but I’ve had my fill of all that. As the wis­est of men wrote: To every thing there is a sea­son, and a time to every pur­pose. And now is my time to cush­ion the nest and build my family’s future. 

I would be delight­ed to hear from you. Tell me what’s new, what’s hap­pen­ing, send pic­tures. I’m thirsty for every piece of news!

My address:

Mrs. Leah Zuckerman

20 Brad­ford St.

Waltham, MA 02451

USA

May you all have a sweet new year, and I hope to see you soon, Leah

P.S.

Miraleh,

Thank you so much, again, for orga­niz­ing the won­der­ful get-togeth­er. I was wor­ried that after what hap­pened last year, none of the girls would want to come, but to my joy, real­i­ty proved me wrong. I know that some of them only came out of a voyeuris­tic curios­i­ty and a desire to see ​“Leah’s Amer­i­can hus­band,” but even the fact that I over­heard a few of them call Jeff ​“stodgy,” an ​“odd bird,” and even ​“anti-social” did not damp­en my spir­its: I don’t give a hoot! And I was so hap­py to final­ly meet your Dudu. I could tell as soon as I met him that he’s a won­der­ful per­son, but the fact that he went out of his way to talk to Jeff, and even prod­ded every­one to speak Eng­lish so that Jeff wouldn’t feel left out, made me admire him even more. Your apart­ment is cozy and pleas­ant, and I liked every­thing about it. I’ve made up my mind to try and grow plants just like you do. And I can’t believe you kept your fan­tas­tic news from me until after the get-togeth­er! (I imag­ine you were afraid I wouldn’t want you run­ning around and work­ing so hard if I’d known of your con­di­tion — oh, Mira, you tru­ly are a kind soul.) When is the baby due? How are you feel­ing? Tell me everything!

With love,

Leah