My brother, Simon, was born in Paris on December 25, 1929. He passed away on April 19, 2024. He was ninety three years old and four months. I am being this precise because I want to give him the full measure of his days, and because he was prized and loved all of his life by family, friends, and anyone who knew him. What makes someone so endearing to others? I’m not trying to glorify him. But he had a certain je ne sais quoi, which I think is just simple genuineness, and integrity. He did not dissemble; he did not dissimulate, nor prevaricate. He simply was who he was, a warm and non-judgmental individual. He liked people and was genuinely interested in their stories. He was generous with his artistic talent, making cards for everyone for any occasion, spontaneously.

His name was Simon. But shouldn’t I say his name is Simon? His name didn’t change just because he died. Simon was pronounced See-Mon because that’s the way it is pronounced in French, his native land and his native language (as for me). His buddies in the army couldn’t pronounce it properly, so they called him Sy. I sometimes called him Sy as well, just to be playful.

Few people have (or have had) a life like Simon had. Like me, he survived the Nazi Holocaust as a hidden child in Normandy. Art was a powerful draw for him (no pun intended) and there, in Normandy, this impulse manifested itself in a set of watercolors, some of which describe his surroundings, some of which introduce some of the personages in his locale, and some that are pure humorous fantasy. I’m including a copy of some of this set, all of which he donated to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. I think they are remarkable, given that he had had no formal training up to that point.

After we immigrated to the States (“we” is Simon, my sister Alice, and me) Simon was soon drafted into the US Army. Talk about a double whammy! He escaped death from the Nazis and from the North Koreans during the Korean War where he served on the front lines. He described his experiences there in his book Frenchy, published in 2005. He was a Holocaust survivor, and also a war survivor as a soldier. Those two experiences cannot be directly compared. But he treasured his army “buddies”. He was corresponding with them, those who were still alive, till close to his own death. There is nothing like sharing a close-to-death experience with another person to form a bond that is unbreakable. And this is true of the bond between men (nowadays, between women as well) who served together. Simon and I had a different kind of close joint experience that formed a lifelong bond, but obviously in a different way than it was for Simon and his army buddies. Of course, as brothers, it’s likely Simon and I would have had a strong bond of affection. But the loss of our parents in the Holocaust bonded us beyond ordinary brotherhood. And here we are, in this photo. The body language is revealing of our closeness.

Although he was only a little more than seven years older than me, Simon took on the role of in loco parentis, to the extent that our circumstances permitted. He just did it out of love. And throughout our lives, in certain ways he was always acting towards me as if I were still 5 years old.

Elsewhere in my writing, I have described that my younger son, Kenny, has become religious. Perhaps he would properly be described as “modern orthodox”. He prays daily, will only eat strictly kosher food, will not travel or work on the Sabbath or Jewish Holidays. But he has a strong sense of obligation about family, which he had already evidenced around five years of age. One day, when he was that age, he asked where my parents were. He had spent many occasions with his grandparents on his mother’s side. So, it was natural to wonder about the other grandparents. Where were they? I told him, in words I can’t really remember, but effectively, that they were no longer alive. Upon which he replied “when I grow up, I’ll be your daddy”.

This same sensibility surfaced when he recently decided, unprompted, to visit Cécile, Simon’s widow. He had previously volunteered to lead the service at my sister’s burial, which he did do at her gravesite in January 2023. Kenny wanted to mark Simon’s passing. My brother’s wish to be cremated, however, presented a problem of sorts. Cremation is not permitted in the Jewish religion. But Kenny felt in his bones that he should do something, actually insisted that he must do something.

The only problem, as it were, is that neither Simon, nor I, ascribe to religion. Furthermore, my brother’s instructions upon his death were that he be cremated. And, in Jewish (religious) law, cremation is forbidden.

Nevertheless, Kenny explained the situation to a rabbi he respects who gave him “permission” to conduct a service on behalf of Simon. This occurred in our apartment in Philadelphia. Such a service requires the presence of ten Jewish men. We could count five or six among our friends, but not ten. So, Kenny marshaled a local rabbi and his men to come to our apartment to fulfill this requirement. Soon after, our doorbell rang and a dozen or so “black hats” (Joan’s term) trooped in as if on a mission. Even though it was a solemn occasion, it struck me somehow as comical, like a religious posse after an errant prayer. So, then we had a mynyan (quorum) and a service began.

I was under a misimpression about this service. This service was not about the deceased individual. It was a typical evening service which contained a prayer called the Kaddish that I had heard many times before in circumstances that led me to think it was about the deceased individual. I was under the impression that it was a prayer for the dead but it was not. It was all about God, a guy with whom I have many disagreements.