"The First Day", Jerusalem Post Magazine, Israel, October 24, 1969, page 24
This was the first written piece of the author ever published (using his Hebrew name) while studying as an overseas High School student in Israel when he was 17 years old. It was originally written as thank you note to a family in Rehovot (where the author was born in 1952 and then emigrated to the USA in 1955) who had him over to their home for the Jewish New Year holiday in 1969. The father of the family was a polymer chemist at the Weizman Institute of Science, and a Haganah commander during the 1948 Israeli War of Indepence. The mother was an Alexander Technique therapist and a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. Both of these people, who are still alive, have had a strong influence on the author’s outlook on life. The poem was submitted to the Jerusalem Post newspaper without the author’s knowledge.
