CALLED TO BREAKTHROUGH

Chapter 1

When you think of Jewish communities in the United States, I think the first place your mind goes to is New York City, not the Midwest—and definitely not Beachwood, Ohio, the suburb of Cleveland where I lived as a young boy.

But the truth is, outside of communities in Israel and New York, Beachwood has the highest concentration of Jews of anywhere in the world. The community was—and still is—roughly 90 percent Jewish. That may just sound like an interesting statistic, but for me growing up, it defined my world. I am an American by birth and nationality, but everything in the culture I grew up in was run through the lens of being Jewish.

My dad’s parents immigrated to the United States in 1913 from Poland, seeking to escape growing anti-Semitism and find a better life in America. My grandfather’s name was Moses Schneiderman, which morphed into Morris Schneider sometime after they got to the United States (probably to make them sound less Jewish). He and my grandmother spoke mostly Yiddish all their lives. I don’t know that they ever learned more than a functional amount of English. My dad’s mother stood above six feet, and my grandpa was about five feet tall. I remember her as domineering, and my dad described his father as sweet.

My grandparents both worked very hard to make it in the new country, and my dad spent a lot of time alone growing up. They had the classic immigrant story, facing numerous hardships and struggles, working their way up doing whatever jobs they could find or create, and hoping their children would live a better life than they had. In fact, my dad had to work after school to contribute to the family income so the family could get by, which meant he never had the opportunity to participate in after-school sports or other activities. It’s amazing how eventually so many of the Jewish children whose parents came over like my dad’s found niche businesses and became very successful entrepreneurs. It was as if it were in their blood.

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