In a roundabout way, the bat mitzvah of my daughter, Sandi, led to my becoming the co-owner of this newspaper. It was a life-changing event.

I had grown up as what is called an "assimilated Jew." If you asked my parents, they were Jewish, but they were not religiously inclined. My father, Martin, had some unpleasant experience with a synagogue when he was young, and it turned him off to Judaism. His lip would curl whenever he saw a rabbi.

My immigrant great-grandfather and American-born grandfather together changed the family name from Harowitz to Harrison in 1909. They did so because my grandfather felt that as an architect with the name Meyer J. Harowitz, he would encounter too much prejudice. So he became M. Joseph Harrison and had a successful career in New York and Connecticut. To Grandpa's delight, my father, Martin Benjamin Harrison, was born on July 4, 1910. An Independence Day baby confirmed the family¹s Americanism, and until Dad was 5, Grandpa fibbed to him that all the fireworks that day were to celebrate his birthday.

Sandi Harrison is presented a bat mitvah tallit by her parents, Nancy and Don, as Rabbis Martin Lawson (center)  and Morton Cohn (right) look on.

Although my mother, Alice Levine, grew up in an Orthodox home, she adjusted to my father's ways, even to the extent that she learned from my paternal grandmother how to bake a Virginia ham with cloves in it. 

About the only sense of connection my family had to Jewish peoplehood was the pride my
father took in helping the Haganah obtain guns during Israel's War of Independence. I do not know the details, but I suspect that Dad met people in the armaments industry when he worked during World War II as a foreman at a Grumman Aircraft plant that made the torpedo bomber known as the Avenger.

We did not belong to a synagogue while I was growing up, but I remember my parents one day asking me—perhaps on my mother¹s insistence— "You don't want to go to Hebrew school, do you?" Of course, I didn¹t. Neither did my brother Bill, five years older than me. The issue never came up again. There was no bar mitzvah on my 13th birthday.

Through high school and college, I dated girls of different religions. I believe it was just a matter of happenstance that I fell in love with Nancy Zeiden, who had grown up in a wonderful, Conservative-leaning Jewish family that kept kosher at home, while at various times being members of Conservative Temple Sinai and Reform University Synagogue in Los Angeles.

As a married couple, our first home was in Sacramento, where the Associated Press sent me to cover the Legislature. With no kosher food readily available, Nancy acquiesced to my desire to keep a nonkosher home, although there was no way she'd ever permit pork products or shellfish in the house!

She can't even think of my mother¹s baked Virginia ham without crinkling her nose!

Furthermore, on the issue of joining a congregation and educating our children Jewishly, Nancy put her foot down. After I came to San Diego to be a politics writer for the San Diego Union, we joined Temple Emanu-El, a Reform congregation. Nancy might have had us join a Conservative congregation in the first place, but I told her that, having no real
background in the Jewish religion, I didn't think I would be able to navigate my way through a Conservative service. Orthodoxy seemed even more inaccessible, and at that time I hadn¹t even heard of the Reconstructionist movement.

For years, I dropped my daughter Sandi off at Temple Emanu-El¹s Torah school and dutifully attended those children's services in which Sandi played some sort of role. But, to be honest, religious training for both Sandi and her younger brother, David, was a matter that I happily left to Nancy.

In November of 1985, it was time for Sandi¹s bat mitzvah at Temple Emanu-El. I still can remember the emotional reaction I had while watching Sandi, up on the bima, confidently reciting her Haftarah. It was as if a bolt of electricity passed through me. There was my daughter, laying claim to a heritage that I had allowed to pass me by. She would know what I never would
know unless I took action: what it means to be a Jew!

Forever, I will feel a debt of gratitude to Rabbi Martin Lawson and the late Rabbi Morton Cohn, who both guided Sandi's education. When I think of the role they therefore played in my own spiritual life, my heart wells up in gratitude.

Moved by Sandi's bat mitzvah, I resolved to learn just as much as I could about my Jewish heritage — not just casually, but seriously. I felt that I needed to start this process at another synagogue, where I had not established any patterns (of non-attendance) and where I could challenge myself to learn and learn. So I transferred to Tifereth Israel Synagogue, in the Conservative movement with which Nancy identified. I soon became a devoted student of Rabbi Aaron Gold, of blessed memory.

Five years before Sandi¹s bat mitzvah, I had left the San Diego Union to go into the public relations field. I figured that one way I could learn at Tifereth Israel Synagogue would be to volunteer my services as a publicist for the synagogue. Like many congregations, Tifereth needed help in telling its story not only to the Jewish newspapers but to the general news media.

I figured correctly that by handling the synagogue's public relations, I would have ready access both to Rabbi Gold and to Cantor Joseph Lutman, and be able to ask them questions about Judaism as often as I needed to. Nancy and I formally would go on to enroll in an adult b'nai mitzvah class taught by Gold— really, all thanks to Sandi's bat mitzvah. Although she had been
confirmed upon concluding her Torah school training, Nancy never had a bat mitzvah either. It was special becoming b'nai mitzvah together.

My father had died 10 years before Sandi's bat mitzvah, so I cannot tell you his reaction to his son's turning toward religion. Had Dad lived, he probably would have treated it lightly.

I well remember that Nancy arranged for us to receive a blessing at the University Synagogue in Los Angeles  the night before our wedding. It was perhaps the first time my father had set foot in a synagogue since he was an adolescent. "Only for you!" he told Nancy.

My mother was in attendance at Sandi's bat mitzvah. I think our excitement about living Jewishly was paralleled by the joy my mother felt in the rediscovery of her Judaism after my father died. She became active in the Soviet Jewish refugee resettlement project at Congregation Beth Israel
After she was remarried, to Harry Walters, religious observance became an
important part of the life they made together, until she died.

A few years after Sandi's bat mitzvah, our son David had his bar mitzvah at Tifereth Israel Synagogue, and my pride in him made me feel all the more committed to pursuing my Jewish education. David was so adept at reading Hebrew that Rabbi Gold let him participate in the corps of Torah readers during the following High Holy Days. Imagine!

Meanwhile, rabbis of three different movements participated in a panel at Tifereth Israel Synagogue. Rabbi Gold discussed the Conservative movement, Rabbi Lawson discussed the Reform movement and Rabbi Eliezer Langer of Beth Jacob Congregation discussed the Orthodox movement. I wrote up what the three rabbis had said and we sent the story off to the San Diego Jewish Times.

That newspaper was kind enough to run the story in December of 1986 on the
front page. Not long afterward, Bob Lupo, then editor of the San Diego edition of Heritage, telephoned me to complain that we hadn't also sent him an account of that panel discussion. That's when I first learned how serious the competition is between the two newspapers.

After I apologized, Bob asked me if I would like to write on a volunteer basis for the Heritage. I thought that, as a reporter, I would have opportunities to ask questions and more questions, not only at Tifereth Israel Synagogue but at all congregations and throughout the San Diego
County Jewish community. Knowing his offer would enable me to further my
Jewish education, I accepted.

Eventually, a new rabbi and cantor came into my life and into those of other Tifereth Israel Synagogue members, Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal and Cantor Alisa Pomerantz-Boro.

As longtime readers of the Heritage know, I became more and more involved with this newspaper, serving as a columnist, associate editor, senior associate editor, editor, and now editor-in-chief and, with Norman Greene, a co-publisher. Imagine what a profound joy it is for me that two important mentors of my family, Rabbis Martin Lawson and Leonard Rosenthal, regularly contribute to Heritage's rotating Torah column.

Perhaps the most climactic step on my continuing journey was the bat mitzvah of Sandi — who, I am delighted to say, remains active in the Jewish community. She and her Israeli-born husband, Shahar Masori, along with their son (my grandson!) Shor, are members of Congregation Beth Am.

Their company, Balloon Utopia, is a member of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Events Services Association (BESA), and, I am pleased to add, Balloon Utopia has regularly provided décor at a variety of Jewish communal events.

My son, David, also remains involved in Jewish life, especially as a Jewish Big Pal in a program under the auspices of Jewish Family Service.

Nancy, Sandi and David each helped to move me along my path to Jewish self-discovery. I thank each of them. I love them all so very much.