My great grandma Alla

     My great Grandmother Alla was born in the late 1800s.  When I was born she was already in her mid-80s.  She never learned English really.  She grew up in a small Ukrainian village, similar to the one in Fiddler on the Roof.  Much of the village spoke Yiddish and had common Jewish names like Moishe, Reevkah and Motle.  She came to the US with my father and his parents in 1980.  Like most Russian immigrants of that time they came to the US as refugees from persecution for being Jewish. 

When leaving LAX to go to their new home, grandma Alla is looking out her window and starts crying compulsively.  My dad asks what's wrong. 

She says, "Every where I look I see Motle, Motle, Motle! My god! Only in America a Jewish man with so many businesses!"

 My dad interrupts, "No grandma M-O-T-E-L."