מאגר סיפורי מורשת

i decided to interview my zaidy, dovid wadler

my zaidy was born in 1952, in florida. he was the second child out of three. when he was five years old, his parents divorced, and his father moved away. his grandparents had a hotel in the cats mountains, and zaidy spent a lot of time there with his mother and brothers. they spent a lot of time playing in the woods, going fishing, and taming cats. they also worked as waiters in the hotel dining room, and even sang yiddish songs for night-time entertainment. zaidy was eight years old when his family moved to brooklyn and started going to yeshiva. after that they still spent summers in the country at the hotel, where he actually built a house with his grandfather. when my grandfather was a teenager he loved to read books, especially science fiction and the writer, isaac asimov. he went to high school at mesivta tiferet yerushalayim, rav moshe feinstein’s yeshiva, and he graduated high school at the age of fourteen. he was so smart that he had skipped a lot of grades. so he actually started collage when he was fourteen! my zaidy studied for his college degree and smicha at the same time.

when he was twenty he went to Israel to learn in yeshiva. that is where he met my savta who was learning in israel at michlala. her best fri was my zaidy’s second cousin, malky, who he had just met. malky thought they would make a great pair, so she set them up.

my zaidy proposed to my savta at the kotel, and they got married in new york, and had four kids. he worked as a teacher for four years and a principal for sixteen years, founded a high school and was its principal for another fourteen years. my zaidy and savta made aliyah in 2008, and live in jerusalem. my zaidy finally went back to yeshiva where he learns every day.zaidy told me an interesting story that is also funny. his older brother, whom he looked up to, taught him how to ride a bike. the only problem was his brother forgot to teach him how to stop. zaidy was so excited, and he called the whole family out see him ride. he started riding down a hill, going really fast. then he fell off because he didn’t know how to stop!