So where did I come from? The grandchild of Irish and Lithuanian Jews, I was born into a privileged minority. There were hierarchies of minority. I was white in a majority Black society; one of the 40% who spoke English, and most essentially, one of the 120,000 Jews in South Africa. I grew up in a tiny town, but on High Holy Days, the Boy Scout hall was rented, old differences papered over, and the Safir Torah, in its Ark, moved from my Dad's study. A few Yeshiva Bokkers, were brought in by my Grandfather, to make up the Minyan. Jewishness was deeply felt, and embraced religion, culture, history, and an unshakable bond with the State of Israel. Surrounded by the upper crust of Englishmen, and blue collar Afrikaners, Jews were constantly reminded of their separate identity. After one of the many episodes of anti-Semitism, my parents erected a flagpole in front of our home, and daily flew the Israeli flag. Tourists were known to stop, and ask if this was the Israeli ambassador's country residence. It was not, but it was a Jewish outpost, and a thorn in the side of the anti-Semites.

Even as Jewish immigrants prospered in business, they stressed education for their children. For this my family moved to Durban, a resort city on the Indian Ocean, with an exotic oriental flavor, and a colonial social structure, that saw it dubbed, with justification, 'the last outpost of the British Empire.' South African Jews succeeded disproportionately in every walk of life, but, there were limits we all knew: Jews and women were not admitted to membership of the Durban club, or the Country Club. The National Education curriculum was officially titled, "Christian National Education." I was one of the few Jewish boys who attended a prep school and high school, instead of Jewish Day School. We sang a hymn daily, but could be excused the weekly religious instruction class. A wave of Christian fundamentalist fervor swept through my 14 year old classmates. Around that time our religious instruction Master chose to recreate the British TV court case, "Christ on Trial." The two Jews were named to prosecute. My parents called our Rabbi for advice. He mumbled a platitude, and got off the phone. Facing off against a Baptist minister's son, I persuaded half the class to vote for conviction.

Jewish South Africans were constantly reminded by parents and community leaders that our actions reflected on the entire Jewish community › "Don't rock the boat," "Don't get involved," "Stick to your studies," and, "What will the Gentiles say?"

We all looked to the United States as the leader of the free world. And perhaps, it was the movies, or the introduction of TV in 1976, that rendered what I found here in 1990, when I arrived here, so incredibly familiar. I planned to further my surgical training in the US, hoping to return to Scotland; however, my sister emigrated to California, and I felt the imperative to reunite our family, if possible. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, seemed to me, to have been created solely to prevent single, educated immigrants, with relatives in the US, skilled, and with no dependents, from gaining access to this country.

Central to immigrant experience is the contrast between life in the 'old country,' and what confronts one in the new culture. Inevitably, this complex transitional equation is solved in simple terms: a list of similarities and differences emerges. The major difference, for me, can be summed up in one word: choice. Used to biscuits and porridge, the bounty in the cookie or cereal aisle almost paralyzed me. Religion was new too; I became aware of the wide array of Jewish communities, and some of their nuances. The simple divide between what I understood as Orthodox, and Reform, was fragmented. Being Jewish could be taken for granted in New York. I lived and worked at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which I was shocked to hear had been set up expressly to combat the quotas which, as recently as the 1960's, prevented American Jews from gaining entrance to medical schools. Despite the many Jews around me, no group, or congregation, reached out to welcome this stranger.

Ironically, it was while at the Mayo Clinic, in Minnesota, that I found the strongest community. In a converted Baptist Church, Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative Jews, and even secular Israelis, from Minnesota and Iowa, came together. Parents taught religious school as volunteers, and the remarkable tolerance for differences reflected a tight-knit sense of community.

Immigration for me, as for many others, has costs that can be measured in the loss of nationality, community, and professional identity. A friend and his wife immigrated to Canada where they became successful citizens and parents. He told me of the first trip he had made back to South Africa, and how so much there had changed. He said, poignantly, "I'll never be a Canadian, but now, I'm not South African, either. I am truly Stateless."

In this country where separation of church and state is a core belief for most liberal Jews, I still shudder at the menorahs set out to counterbalance public displays of Christian religious symbols. Such gestures to me are not balance; they are at best token, and at worst, provocative. The naming of Jews or those with typically 'Jewish' names, as in the recent New Jersey Governor's or AIPAC scandals set off a reflex in me - I cringe as I wonder, 'Is this bad for the Jews?' In South Africa, one could not opt out of one's identity. Here, in the Goldene Medinah, unaffiliated Jews, indifferent Jews, Jews for Jesus, Jews turned Buddhists, anti-Zionist Jews, and Jews in Mitzvah tanks, continue to discomfit me. Is this the price of comfortable assimilation? Is the melting pot producing a tasteless stew?

Almost always, immigrants try to keep alive something of the cultural experience for their children. But often, that hope dwindles to a smattering of the language, and some cultural rituals, with the low-water mark that green line on Fifth Avenue on St. Patrick's Day. How does a Jewish immigrant inculcate Yiddishkeit into children who are regularly indoctrinated to be so casual and inclusive about issues of faith and religious identity? Religion cannot be semesterized. How to preserve the link with that same Israel that is demonized in the mass media?

We face stronger polarization: a stark choice between blind acceptance of conformist and unquestioning observance, or the personal and highly individual selection of just a few choice morsels from the huge buffet of Jewish tradition and observance. Neither of these fulfills my needs, or calms my fears. Like my Grandfather, I put family above all else. I continue to believe in the Family as the essential building block of enduring communities and societies.