Oral History Interview with Eric Avram, November 12, 2010, inclusive

During the interview, Eric Avram (1965-) describes his parents' immigration to Brooklyn. He relates how his parents met when his father was in medical school in Geneva. Avram talks about his close family, including his children and their cousins, most of whom live in Brooklyn Heights. He talks about career changes and shares his memories of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue. He recalls setting up the chairs and someone bringing home-baked challah at Grace Court. He describes that the elders/founders of the synagogue conveyed to the young children a sense of thankfulness that the church was allowing them to worship in the space on Friday nights. Avram recalls that this was only 30 years after WWII and the elders were "suspicious of being accepted or not" and "seemed touched" by the church's generosity. He also describes well the political sense of the synagogue community and their proactive response to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s—1990s and reaching out to the Muslim Community in Brooklyn following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Avram explains that his family is still very close to the synagogue and all family life cycle moments have involved the synagogue (bar/bat mitzvahs, weddings, births) and that it is his family's tradition on Yom Kippur to do the Jonah reading, a tradition they maintain as the family grows. Interview conducted by Sady Sullivan.