The most intriguing dimension of this wartime portrait is that when the photo was taken, neither Alexander the Grandpa nor his family knew that he too was a Jew. For it was years after his passing that a woman with the same family name, Sabatini, befriended my aunty and produced photos of Alexander and his ancestors. At this time, she informed the family that we were all Jews too. Years earlier, my mother witnessed an instrumental clue that validated the woman’s story of Alexander’s Jewish ancestry. Alexander’s mother was observed speaking Yiddish during a visit with my father’s parents who were of Polish Jewish descent. Apparently, it was a bizarre scene; my old-world Italian great-grandmother speaking Yiddish and having a splendid afternoon with my father’s Polish parents.

Alexander the Grandpa was especially fond of our Jewish cultural heritage because of its strong moral framework that reinforced his virtuous socialist ideology. During his lively diatribes, he would hold up the Jewish community as an example of a superior socialist culture, emphasizing how clever the First Testament authors were by encoding an ethical framework into The Ten Commandments. Honour thy father and thy mother; Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt not commit adultery; and Thou shalt not steal. Grandpa Alex highlighted that this code of conduct effectively separated the human from their inherent animal instincts to rape, pillage, and plunder. He applauded the Jews’ economic collaboration, transcending profits by keeping business in the community. Alexander the Grandpa also appreciated how The Ten Commandments, much like Liberalism, and Socialism are noble principles, frameworks to tame the Darwinian beast; to control our inherent animalistic instincts to rape, pillage, and plunder. 

To further distill Alexander The Grandpa’s thesis he would impassionately preach that people got to have a few bucks in their pockets or society will turn to crappola. Unfortunately, Alexander The Grandpa, and Karl Marx for that matter, didn’t appreciate that the algorithm driving the universe is cold, darwinian, deterministic and simple: to collect the most points.