My wife, Jody, and I joined a club that we really wanted entrance to – the grandparents club. Our daughter, Merav, gave birth to a healthy baby boy a bit more than two weeks ago. I gave a speech at the brit milah ceremony. Here’s what I said.

If I were to tell you that I fell in love with this little guy in the first minute I met him, you’d say that that was a cliché. But sometimes cliches are true.

There is something about a newborn that is hard to resist. Even more when that newborn is your first grandson and your daughter and son-in-law’s first child.

It’s difficult to describe exactly the feeling. We don’t know him yet, nor has he expressed a strong personality yet (although he’s got a good set of lungs on him).

So, it’s not his witty jokes, his seamless repartee or his physical actions that led to this love affair. It’s a visceral, subconscious feeling that seeps over you with an intensity that’s different than even having your own children.

Maybe that’s because with a grandson you can simply enjoy him, knowing that at the end of the day, someone else will be doing the feeding and changing and not sleeping.

But even that doesn’t explain entirely this love. 

Is it his sweet baby smell?

Is it those little baby noises he makes that are so adorable (until they transition into full on crying)?

Is it his lips – oh, those beautiful lips – that are so perfect?

Is it his skin that is so incredibly soft because it’s brand new? 

Or is it simply the fact that Merav worked so hard to carry him, to nurture him inside of her, to grow him for nearly 40 weeks with all his toes and fingers and body parts (now minus a foreskin, of course), and to take care of his every need for the rest of his life! (An exaggeration, but only slight.)

Regular readers know I am not much of a religious person these days, but the first thing I thought when I saw him was, “He’s a miracle.”

Another miracle: that Merav and Gabe found each other. 

Merav moved with us from California to Israel when she was one year old. Gabe didn’t come from New York until he was a teenager. Somehow, they found each other and they’ve created an entire world with their own circle of friends and now a new human being.

The baby’s name is Ilai Ze’ev. (That’s pronounced “ee-lie,” accent on the second syllable.) My son-in-law Gabe explained the meanings of the names at the brit milah. 

Ilai stands for greatness and strength, Gabe said. (It literally means “supreme.”) His middle name honors my father who passed away in 2009. I am so thrilled and delighted that this name will be continuing on in the world.

My father’s name in English was Walter but his Hebrew name was Tzvi Ze’ev. His parents added Chaim when he contracted polio at age 17 and they were told that adding a third name – meaning “life” – would be a good omen. 

It was – he recovered and was able to live a full life, even if he could never run or play sports again the way he did when he was an active teenager.

Ze’ev is Hebrew for “wolf” – it’s an animal that runs in packs. “Merav and I take community very seriously,” Gabe said in his naming speech. “We have incredible friends and family. We wish for Ilai Ze’ev that he grows with the same support system we are so lucky to have.”

My father was a complicated man – aren’t we all? – but I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t be half the person I am today were it not for him. He was a writer, a radio disk jockey, a connoisseur of classical music. His creativity, his love of politics, science, literature and culture – those are all things that I received from him in abundance. I hope that this little baby boy picks up some of those attributes by sharing a name. 

My father didn’t have the ability to play ball with us, but he was passionate about reading to his own children and then to his grandchildren. He would have loved to have met his great grandson. I am so sad that he didn’t make it this far, but I know that his spirit will live on in little Ilai Ze’ev. And I will take up the mantle and read to him the way his great-grandfather surely would have.

Ilai Ze’ev is fortunate to have five great grandparents still alive. And the sixth is here in spirit through his name.

Merav and Gabe: You have brought an incredible gift into the world – another human being who will be so loved by all his many relatives and your many friends. You are going to be incredible parents – no, you already are incredible parents – I’ve seen that in just a week with this little guy. 

Savta and I (still getting used to that) are so happy for you, so excited for him, and so over the moon in love. 

I first welcomed Ilai Ze’ev to the fold in The Jerusalem Post.

When my father died 11 years ago, I wasnâ€t sure what to do about Kaddish. Saying the mournerâ€s prayer three times a day, as many traditional Jews do, didnâ€t seem like something I could – or would want – to take on. 

Instead, I wondered if there was something else more personally meaningful that could serve as an alternative to Kaddish for my father

My father worked for 35 years as a feature writer and editor for the San Francisco Examiner, where he covered arts, culture and show business for California Living and Image magazines. Over his career, he interviewed such figures as Victor Borge, Phyllis Diller, Leonard Nimoy, Buddy Hackett and Carl Sagan. 

But my fatherâ€s dream was to publish a novel. Every night after dinner, he would retire to his home office where he would diligently type away on his IBM Selectric, crafting his fiction until it was time for the evening TV sitcoms.

He worked on one novel after another, but never managed to land an agent or a publishing contract. He had just finished a draft of his latest work when he died of cancer at the age of 81.

In 2009, self-publishing was still mired in the stigma of “vanity.” Nor were eBooks much of a thing – Amazon had only debuted the first Kindle a year earlier. 

My father never considered going the indie route – if he couldnâ€t grab the attention of a traditional New York publisher, he wasnâ€t interested.

But I knew how to work with Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing. I had already been corresponding with a number of book designers and layout artists. 

What if I were to edit my fatherâ€s last book and publish it for him, posthumously?

My father left a nearly finished version of that book, The Bell Tower, on his computer, which my brother, Dave, emailed to me following my fatherâ€s death. 

I spent the next nine months deeply immersed in the world heâ€d created. The Bell Tower is a semi-autobiographical novel that takes place in a fictional small town in the American South, where the protagonist, like my father, worked as a radio announcer while searching for love.

I knew my father had started his career in radio, but I didnâ€t know much about the place heâ€d lived. Now that he was gone, I couldnâ€t ask him how much of what heâ€d written in The Bell Tower was true. The radio part seemed accurate enough – I had experience spinning discs for my college radio station – and the details of the tight-knit, gossipy, small-town Jewish community were well-constructed.

There were some passages I was less comfortable with, in particular several racy scenes which I debated whether to leave in or not. And I was curious to what extent the woman with whom my fatherâ€s alter-ego in the book was obsessed reflected past romances my father may have had before he married my mother. 

The trickiest part of editing the book was the ending – it was weak and I struggled with what to do with this final section.

I soon found out why.

When I finished the edit, my brother discovered a second draft of The Bell Tower that addressed the wobbly conclusion – albeit not for the better. In fact, in order to fix the plot holes in the first draft, my father had changed the folksy nature that characterized much of what I enjoyed in the first place.

But now I was in a quandary. Should I stick with a first draft he clearly didnâ€t intend to be released – or work on the revised version that wasnâ€t as good?

I decided to go with the original with a changed ending; it was the only new writing I added.

And then, as I do with my own work, I put it aside in order to come back later with fresh eyes.

Except that I didnâ€t touch it again for ten years.

Perhaps I was still uncomfortable with the idea of putting his book out into the world without the permission he certainly couldnâ€t give. And yet, if he knew how easy it is (from a technical point of view, at least) to self-publish nowadays, would that have given him the professional satisfaction that alluded him for so long?

Michal Govrin helped me make my decision. 

I met the celebrated Israeli poet, novelist and stage director at a Shabbat dinner in 2019. It took her twenty years, she told me, before she had the courage to edit the autobiography of own father, a Zionist pioneer and kibbutznik who literally helped drain the swamps. 

“Itâ€s wonderful to do this kind of project,” she emphasized, “to get to know your father in this deep and intimate way. I believe he would have wanted it.”

My brother and my mother concurred.

I finally published The Bell Tower. My father even has his very own Amazon Author page. My layout designer was so taken by the endeavor, she threw in a free print design, so itâ€s available in paperback as well as electronic format.

Dwelling in the imaginative world my father fashioned gave me new insights into his feelings on religion, his own parents, and following oneâ€s passions. The fact that, like my father, I had originally hoped to launch a career in radio before turning to writing, only made the narrative of The Bell Tower more resonant.

I stopped saying the traditional Kaddish before the first year was over. But in many ways, Iâ€ve never stopped saying it. Itâ€s just taken me ten years and 103,000 words to convey it properly.

Walter Blumâ€s novel, The Bell Tower is available on Amazon at https://amzn.to/36qFMWG.

I first wrote about The Bell Tower for The Jerusalem Post.