In the goat-sized village of Shavlan, Lithuania, following his Bar-Mitzvah, my father-to-be, Monas (Moe), founded the Flowers of Zion Club – consisting of three blossoms: his brother, Hanoch, their best friend, Leibeleh, and himself. My future mother, in the East End of London, then a schoolgirl of ten, kept a scrapbook with news items on Theodor Herzl. Halley’s Comet to these blister-hot Zionists was G–d’s Finger Pointing from the Diaspora to Palestine, the Jewish Homeland ...

Years passed and G–d’s Finger blurred.

Moe, drafted by the Russian Army, sneaked across the border followed by his parents and brothers and defected to Cape Town. A few years later, Becky hid behind the heavy damask curtain in the living-room of her London home and peeked at her ‘intended’, a brilliant Hasidic rabbinical scholar – red-bearded, side-curled, fat and short who was standing by the window in the fading light examining her photo with approval. His parents who were seated at the table with her parents and the matchmaker had already found her dowry acceptable. The conditions of the marriage contract were now being discussed – and it was agreed that Rebecca would be living with her in-laws and that it would be her honorable duty to support her erudite husband and herself while he continued to delve into the intricate mysteries of the Kabbala.

Becky decided to disappear! She sneaked back into her room and knifed her savings out of her mattress. By the end of the week she had booked passage on a boat sailing for South Africa and a fortnight later unloaded her belongings, including the Theodor Herzl scrapbook, in a furnished room in Cape Town. She had seen the Cape of Good Hope!

After several months, a mutual friend introduced my future parents and they were soon sharing Zionist dreams. However, G–d’s Finger was quite out of focus by this time and the ‘pioneering’ Becky took her sparkling new husband back to England. There Moe, a bass-baritone, auditioned for Covent Garden and was accepted – about a year later – after they had reached the shores of the U.S.A. and had settled in an apartment across the street from the Bronx Zoo!

Count nine months back – and it was July when my future parents steamed, I gleamed, and Moe rushed to do double-time as a negative retoucher. Slowly, the dollars piled into a “feathered” crib for me.

One windy March midnight, Moe didn’t come home and the big-bellied Becky almost missed my carriage! She went outside to search for her breadwinner and met a newly minted cop.

“Lady, who’re ya lookin’ for?”

“My husband; have you seen him?”

“Yeah! Get into the patrol-wagon and I’ll take you to the morgue. I think he’s dead!”

At the morgue, the good officer wheeled a refrigerated bloated corpse toward her – and Becky stared with a pounding heart at the high blue nose and blond crewcut!

“Poor old dad”, murmured the kindly cop. “Got ’nother one younger-n this come in half hour ago. Bashed by a train. Wanna take a look?”

Becky declined.

“Hey, wottsa-matta? Wanna cup-a-coffee?” (I’m glad I wasn’t born in the morgue!)

Moe came home one in the morning and found his pregnant wife missing. He checked all the hospitals and eventually approached a policeman.

“She's in the morgue!” said the keeper of the peace. “Get into the patrol-wagon.”

In 1962, Nikita Khrushchev upset my mother. She feared that one doomed night, trapped in our beds in our four-family Brooklyn bungalow, we would awaken briefly – and then suffocatingly disintegrate in the yellowish smoke of Russia’s next Hydrogen Bomb experiment!

“It’s G–d’s Finger Pointing!” said Madré pulling out a suitcase. “We’re going to Israel!”

“What about the Arabs?” I said. “Isn’t Australia safer?”

“G–d will protect us! Whatsamatta? You don’t want to go to Israel, a nice Jewish girl? You prefer to get strontium in your bones and pass it on – G–d Forbid – to my grandchildren, if you survive?”

Actually, I felt excited. I had never been further than Maine. February of 1962 had been atrocious! My nose had dribbled constantly and I felt like a grizzly in my heavy mouton and bulky fur-lined boots.

In the middle of March, Madré visited the Jewish Agency on Park Avenue. She came back ecstatic. The Director had told her that new immigrants were permitted to import a certain amount of household equipment free-of-charge. According to her calculations, this meant all of our furniture – and more! Besides, there had been a devaluation which meant that my parents’ pension would be three times fatter in Israel. Madré told everyone we were leaving.

“Oh, my!” Mrs. Jorgensen, our neighbor who lived in the apartment above ours, clucked sympathetically. “You folks are soooo brave! May the good Lord protect you!”

Mrs. Mandelbraut, our other neighbor, added her concerned chirp: “Maybe you won’t like it there. Leave your furniture here until you’re certain.”

Mr. Profundus who lived across the hall didn’t want to discourage us “but they don’t even have toilet-paper in Israel”, he said biting his lip.

That afternoon, Madré and I went shopping. She picked out an enormous collapsible suitcase and piled it stiff with toilet-paper, soap, toothpaste, camphor-bags, and disinfectant. I took one end of the bloated corpse and Madré the other end and we lugged it home.

“But Madré”, said Dickie, “Mr. Profundus only mentioned toilet-paper.”

“G–d knows what else is lacking – but I’m sure with their fine Jewish brains they’ll catch on quick.”

“I wonder what the people with piles do in Israel”, Dickie mused.

Madré’s Uncle Sam and Aunt Sophie praised us for our idealism but warned us about the lack of toilet-paper in Israel. Madré went shopping again and tried to squeeze the extra load of articles – and the broom – into the suitcases.

“Dickie, they won’t close! Sit on the suitcases firmly but cautiously so they won’t break.”

I said goodbye to my employer and all my friends. “You're very brave!” they said admiringly. “Watch out for malaria! The girls go to war there! Stock up on toilet-paper!”

In the beginning of May, some laborers came to crate the furniture. Madré insisted that everything be included – fixtures, mop, garbage-pail, even the broom which was too long for the suitcases. The hammer and nails went into a shopping bag.

People we hardly knew came to wish us good luck.

On the morning of June 15, 1962, three G–d fearing explorers set out on their perilous journey. Mr. Profundus kissed and hugged Dickie.

“You’re a good man for a Jew and we’re sure going to miss you!”

Mrs. Rachel Mandelbraut removed her chain with the gold star and clasped it around Madré’s neck. “Goodbye, you sweet darlings!” she sniffled.

I climbed into the taxi and watched the misty Ocean Parkway trees race by.

Goodbye, Amerigo Vespucci!

Goodbye, Green Lady Ma!

Goodbye, my Cradle of Steel!

Mr. Khrushchev, how could you? This was far worse than Stanley thrashing his way through a mosquito-nibbling jungle. Admiral Peary slipping and sliding on a Titanic ice-cap...

A tear tickled the side of my nose.

This was a one-way ticket to the moon!