My Secular Ancestors

The baby on the right is me, being held by my mother back in 1947 -- with all of my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents on my mother's (the Rogow) side of our family. (My dad, Hyman Mishlove, is standing above mom, on the right.) In a previous blog, I spoke of the Chassidic influence on my father's side. But, the influence from my mother's family was distinctly secular.

This photograph (about postage-stamp size) actually appears on the back cover of a new book written by my first cousin, Steven V. Roberts (one of the two twins in the picture) called My Fathers' Houses: Memoir of a Family. It is a rather detailed description of the family into which my mother was born. It is a story of east coast, Jewish intellectuals moving away from their "old world" traditions. 



My grandfather, Abe Rogow (shown above in a photo from 1971), was a very colorful character, who made a point of avoiding religious education for his children -- even though he, himself, had been an early twentieth century pioneer on a kibbutz in Israel.

My grandparents seemed to have no use, whatsoever, for rabbis. However, when my parents were married in 1942, my grandparents found the very same elderly rabbi who had officiated at their own wedding decades earlier.

As for myself, it seems that these two streams of thought are combined. While I am not an active participant in any particular religion, I consider myself a student of all religions. And, I am particularly interested in combining the disciplines of secular academia to the problems that have long been considered the province of religion -- such as the nature and destiny of the human soul.

Undoubtedly, the secular influence upon me is stronger than the religious. In fact, I tend to think that the secular lifestyle has certain virtues common to all of humanity -- such as the way in which all people are united through commerce -- that are lacking in religion. Religions tend to cause divisions among people, whereas the secular lifestyle unites -- and, therefore, may be even more genuinely spiritual.

Incidentally, this branch of the family has produced a number of writers. Among my first cousins (in addition to myself and Steven V. Roberts), there is also Zack Rogow (poet and literary translator); Steve's twin brother, Professor Marc Roberts; and mystery novelist Miriam Ann Moore. Virtually all of my uncles were writers, the most noted being Zack's father, Lee Rogow, who died tragically in 1955. My mother, Rose Mishlove (see my blog on Yoga With Rose), has had short stories published. And, even my grandfather (an entrepreneurial carpenter) self-published a pamphlet describing his plan for world peace (based on the world federalist model).