Fierce Roots – Melani/Leskin

Every conversation I have with my father, I want to tear open his brain and take out all the Jewish memories. What else do you remember about the Jewish cousins you lived next door to in Philly? I keep asking. This time, he remembers an Uncle Marvin who was “so cool and was so nice to me.” The Leskins married the Lakins. It was like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers where there were a few matches between the two families. My father’s grandfather was Joseph Meier and my grandmother’s name? Chana – חַנָה. One of my uncles was named Leon Lakin and married Rebecca who they called “Becks.” There was a Rose and a Frieda, my Aunt Helen and finally my grandmother, my father’s mother: Abigail Leskin married to Cecil Kinsey.

Looking at my name: Elisabeth Kinsey, you’d never know that I come from a Leskin and a Melani. I’m so hungry for my immigrant roots, it’s hard not to look back at my Mormon life as a big sponge that wiped all that rich culture clean and left white bread behind. I wouldn’t be writing this, however, if that Jewish Italian self didn’t absorb my heritage from my grandparents throughout my life. I’m fierce about that. Fierce to protect that struggle to make a life in the new land. Fierce to grow tomatoes in Saratoga, California. Perhaps the Torah service prepared my father for the three hour Mormon service. Maybe Mormon ritual reminded him of a more straight forward form of the Jewish ritual? He confided to me that he never learned Yiddish and felt like an outsider because of it. Looking at my Mormon parents, you’d never see those fierce roots. Until my mother tells me to put the basilico into a recipe or my father reminisces about his days in Philly. Then I know where I stand.