So got us recorded talking about minutia. You know, great trivia. So thank you for sending the photos. Oh. You're welcome. Um, if you have other photos of yourself sort of in action, photos that are less portraiture and that more tell a story, that would be helpful to us. Unfortunately, seeing as how I don't have a congregation. Yeah. Um, or and I'm not working in a hospital or anything. I mean, when you see me in action, I'm sitting at my computer. Right? And that's where a lot of those photos are taken. I don't know if you go to demonstrations or if there are any. I did send you one picture that's from a demonstration, although I think I have one that was kind of zoomed in on my face. But I do have a larger one. Uh, that kind of shows more of the picture of the demonstration. That would be good. That was actually on the day the Electoral College met. God. So that was a cold morning. In more ways than one. Exactly. Every day I wake up and I just. Oh, God. Another day. And, you know, my mother didn't live to see it. She. She died a month before the election. Wow. And, you know, I'm glad that she didn't live to see this. You know, Leonard Cohen died the night slash morning, night before morning of the election, and I don't know if you're a Leonard Cohen fan, but it seems somehow. Just for him, he had been very ill. And the fact that he didn't have to live to see it. Yeah. Now, I do have a friend who's a professional photographer, and she actually was going to do some shots for me a couple of months ago, but something with her schedule blew up, so. I'll reach out to her. Okay. Well, again, we're not, you know, it's not portraiture we're looking for. It's really the things that tell your story. So one of you is in your current mode, plus. You are in the military. That's a wonderful picture. And we'll probably use that as the. It was actually the, um, that one ran. Um, it was one of the Jewish newspapers. I think it was the Times of Israel. I had seen it before. Yeah. Um, after I was interviewed by Jewish War Veterans and JTA, GTA picked it up. And that was an interesting story too, because the Jewish Community newspaper in London wrote an article about this story. They didn't quote the article from GWB correctly or directly. I mean, but they wrote an article about the article, which was really kind of funny. And a website in Sydney, Australia, also provided links to the article. So it got global notice, which was really pretty fascinating. So you're world famous now? World-famous rabbi. Yeah, great. This is definitely working. I'm paranoid about my recording devices. So that's why you have backups? I do, yeah, yeah, yeah. As a journalist, I've done hundreds of interviews, and twice I've had the recorder not work. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So that's the worst feeling in the world. And then you've got the grinding of the air conditioning compressor, which makes the background noise louder and not a problem. I've done enough interviews here that I know it works so well. You always have sound processing boards. You can edit those kinds of things out. That's right. So tell me about your background to begin with. Where were you born, and what was your childhood like? Uh, born in Arcadia, which is a suburb of Los Angeles in LA County. Um, my mother was a public school teacher. My father did research into solid-state electronics back in the early days of miniaturization and stuff. Um, we moved around a lot in early childhood. Finally settled in San Jose in the 70s. And she worked at the same school in East Side San Jose, teaching ghetto and barrio kids for almost 40 years, teaching them middle school math. And she had the privilege of seeing the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of her students. My sister has followed in her footsteps and is very close to retirement now as a math teacher in San Jose. Her husband is a colleague of hers at the same school in San Jose, and their oldest and youngest are also public school teachers, one in San Jose on the east side and one in Santa Clara. So, you know, education is kind of the family business. Um, my brother is a Captain of the San Jose Fire Department. Uh, he's currently on modified assignment because of an injury, but he'll be returning to being the public information officer. And you know, after a couple of years of college, I realized that college at that point wasn't the best bet for me. I enlisted in the Navy and enrolled in the nuclear power program. And while I was in the training pipeline, I was awarded an ROTC scholarship, went to UCLA, finished my college degree, got commissioned, then went to Nuclear Power School in Orlando for the second time, first as an enlisted man and then as an officer. And then, uh, prototype training in New York, submarine School training in Connecticut, and then to USS Hawkbill, which is a fast attack submarine in Pearl Harbor. And that was November of '83. And it was a Thursday. I reported aboard the boat the next day I went to Kabbalat Shabbat Services at the Aloha Jewish Chapel on base. I met the woman whom I've been with for 34 years. Wow. So it's kind of stuck. Yeah. Yeah. Um, was your family observant? Uh, growing up? Moderate. Moderately. So. Um, you know, my father kind of did his own thing, and so, you know, you wouldn't have defined it necessarily as purely Orthodox or anything. Um, later in life, he said that he identified as an Orthodox Jew. Um, you know, back then, Conservative Judaism wasn't really that big of a thing, and there wasn't that much distinguishing it from Orthodoxy anyway. Mhm. Um, you know, interestingly, the synagogue in San Jose that we went to then, and that I go to now when I'm in San Jose at the time was called traditional. So it was basically modern Orthodox with mixed seating. And the youth group was in CSI, which is the Orthodox Union. Now they're conservative. You know, remember, the United Synagogue and their youth group are from the USY. So, you know, that congregation has undergone a transition and that whole area actually has Jewishly. So they have an eruv around that area now. And there are, in addition to a Conservative shul, there's an Orthodox shul on the same block. So it's kind of a bustling little Jewish area, and it's really kind of a cool place to visit now.
