Interesting, because my father's family were shop-owners, not very religious from what I've seen. My grandfather's grave down in Svannah doesn't even have the traditional 'Ben - ' meaning 'Son of -' on his gravestone. My dad and his brothers never had Bar Mitzvahs, but they were circumstised. Neither my dad or either of his two brothers were ever pro-union and my family has always been anti-union as well as quite conservative in politics. My grandmother whose family was from the Ukraine, near Kiev, were wealthy by their standards, yet they came to America around 1898 for a better life. Which goes to show just how bad things were for the Jews there. Kat [log in to unmask] wrote: > Kyle and Trisha, > > My great grandfather was at the least an Orthodox Jew. My dad doesn't know > if he was a rabbi or not. His photo of him he has the hat, the side curls, and > the beard. My grandfather was so turned off by religion because he went hungry > as a child, that he became a socialist. He came to the States and was > involved with the unions here. The unions were a direct out growth of socialists that > came here from other countries. My dad was raised on socialist ideology, so > he was a big pro-union guy.