Bar Mitzvah — at Last - Chapter 32

The next morning found Miriam, with Ari beside her, expertly threading her small Fiat through the maze of streets in the Old City and out to the hilltop Holocaust Museum, not far from the Knesset. As they drove, he learned that she was a widow, having lost her husband of six weeks in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. They’d had no children, and she had never remarried. Sitting next to her, he felt a sense of easy and pleasant camaraderie between them, as though he’d known and respected this admirable woman all his life. And he sensed that she felt the same way about him.“It’s going to be horrifying,” Miriam warned Ari as they left the car in the parking lot and walked toward the sprawling complex, “so just be prepared. It’s beyond anything you could imagine. I never cried so much… I mean, really wept… as the first time I went through.”“Really?” he asked, not knowing how else to respond.