Aboard the Queen Mary
25 February 1939
My dearest daughter Hannah,
You are thirteen. You may have thought in the surprise and sorrow of your Mama’s death that I had forgotten. I had not. The thirteenth birthday has meant a great deal to Mama’s family and mine, which, as you know—if only in a vague sense of felt dinner-table conversations and whispered jokes—are the same family.
It is an ancient principle among the Jews to honor their own at this birthday, which in former times signaled the legal and religious beginning of adulthood and responsibility. Our family has been short on religion, but long on tradition. And in our family, no story has carried on the tradition as strongly as the Esau Letter.
It is a letter, a history, a deathbed testament written by our ancestor, Eliyahu ben Moshe Halevy, to his only son, Eliphaz, 433 years ago. To your Mama, this letter was the sun, the moon, and the stars. To me? Ah, Hanni. Perhaps it is only a father who sees more history in his daughter’s eyes than in a few scraps of paper.
You and I are embarking today on an adventure back to the dark continent from whence our ancestors sailed hundreds of years ago. It may strike you as odd that we return while our people are fleeing in ever-increasing numbers. “Our survival is in our motion,” Esau writes in his letter. Some read that to mean flight. I read it otherwise, but then, I am a travel agent. Perhaps your eyes will find a third reading that will guide you through the uncertain days ahead.
Your loving Papa