When news from far away Liberia reached my parents in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) my mother wept. My letter had announced my marriage –  for the following week. Her next-door neighbour, Mrs Isaak; asked what it was that was distressing her. She told her that Peter, her only son, was about to marry “out” – marry a non-Jewish girl.

Now my mother came from a family that had – at least in the prior two generations – not taken  religion very seriously.  However, under the influence of Cantor Metzger (and he did have a very fine voice) my mother had become very enthusiastic about the ancestral religion.  Every Sabbath eve she appeared in Synagogue. On the Day of Atonement she fasted.

My father was not affected in the same way although he came from a family which had taken religion seriously. His father was, for many years, chairman of the old and important Jewish congregation of Glogau, Silesia.

Mrs Isaak informed my mother promptly how my parents were expected to react:  They were to break off all contact with their son, disinherit him, declare him dead and say Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, for him.

My father was outraged: “I will do no such thing.”

My mother was more perplexed. She wept for days.

But time … time is a great healer. My mother came to love her daughter-in-law and later  apologised “I was wrong,” she said, “Very wrong. You’ve been a good wife to my son.”

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