Long Beach Jewish Life October 2015 | Page 33

Ron Wolfson Is

The Best Boy in the

United States of America

Growing up, Ron Wolfson was The Best Boy in the United States of America. How do I know this is true? Because that's the title of his warm and loving memoir. And how does Ron Wolfson know this is true? Simple – “That's what my grandfather – my 'Zaydie' – called me from the time I was a little child in Omaha, Nebraska. I know it's true because this is a true story. All my stories are true.” And all of Ron Wolfson's beautifully crafted true stories create a wonderfully nuanced portrait of growing up Jewish in Omaha, Nebraska in the 1950s and 1960s.

While attending Hebrew school, when he actually thought his Hebrew name was Sheket because the word (actually Hebrew for quiet) was so frequently hurled in his direction, it might have been hard to imagine that Wolfson would become one of the leading Jewish educators in the world and the author of thirteen books about Judaism, including the important and game-changing Relational Judaism: Using the Power of Relationships to Transform the Jewish Community.

Wolfson's memoir is a collection of very short, very simple stories. One story is about how his Bubbie lit the Shabbat candles, another tells about a young Wolfson being cast in the role of Tevye in a summer camp production of Fiddler on the Roof; and yet another story is about his meeting a girl who eventually became his wife. In other chapters, we follow Wolfson to Los Angeles, where he studies at the University of Judaism (now the American Jewish University, where Dr. Wolfson is the Fingerhut Professor of Education), we learn about the birth of his daughter, and the deaths of his parents.