Jacob’s Story

Hashem has a special place in His heart for orphans and widows, as the near-sixty years of my life can attest to.
 
I was born on Shabbat, the first of Av, the day that Aaron the High Priest died, to a 15-year-old mother to whom to this day I have never seen or known. The year was 1954, the Jim Crow era where racial hatred and segregation was the norm in America. Discrimination against African Americans was not limited to the south; it was in every demographic nook and cranny of the American psyche. 

Three days after my birth, I was adopted by an African American family that was heavily involved in the civil rights movement. My father, a World War II veteran, fought against Hitler, racism, and challenged the social norms. His old army records revealed that he was one of the first African American film directors, but his life was cut short. While celebrating my third birthday he was cut down by the Ku Klux Klan – it was called a drowning accident. When I turned five my mother started working as a live-in maid for the Kaplan’s, a prominent Jewish family. During that time here in America It was primarily the only real respectable job an African American woman could get.

Above image:  Macabee Martial Arts Grand-Master Jacob Lunon

 
Living with the Kaplan family enabled us to rent out our home to gain a little extra income. The Kaplan’s treated us like family; this was my first introduction to Judaism. Coming from a background steeped in religion, as my grandfather was one of the first black deans of a seminary college, I asked a lot of questions as did my new “brother and sister”, John and Karen, ask of me. I remember asking Mrs. Kaplan “Why do you light candles on Shabbat?” Karen and John had already told me that it was to welcome the Shabbat angels into our house, but Mrs. Kaplan painted such a vivid picture, she said: “When the candles are lit it makes a big ring of fire, a comet going around the world from people of the Jewish faith who live in different places on the earth. That picture stuck out in my mind more than anything else, and I never forgot it. What a connection between families of people! It was an overwhelming and comforting thought for a little boy who was struggling with how to feel connected to anyone or anything. I never could let it go – the seeds were planted, and I longed to feel connected to something as intense as that.

Every Friday night we would have a Shabbat meal, and Saturday morning I would go to Temple, and Sundays I would spend in church with my mother. During the week I went to a private Lutheran school. Schools were “integrated,” but blacks sat separately from whites. John and Karen attended public school and Hebrew school afterwards. We could hardly wait until the weekend when we could all play together and light Shabbat candles. That was my earliest and most treasured memory of my childhood.

When I was nine years old, America was exploding at the seams. The civil rights movement was in full force. Medgar Evers, head of the Mississippi NAACP was killed in June that year, the March on Washington was in August, the Birmingham bombing in September, and President Kennedy’s assassination occurred in November. The school system was integrated in Englewood, New Jersey where I lived at the time and most of my friends were Jewish, which made me a target for all kinds of retaliation from blacks as well as teachers. Fortunately, I lived right next door to the school so I didn’t have too far to run.

At the age of 13, I witnessed a cross burning on my grandfather’s property while visiting in the south during summer vacation. I remember landing in Newark Airport in my pajamas the next morning, and arriving just in time for one of my best friends’ Bar Mitzvah. I was sent to camp for the rest of the summer. At a local carnival a Chinese American boy and I were attacked by some kids from the town. We fought back and he invited me to train and learn Kung Fu in New York City. This was a great honor as at that time if you were not of Chinese ancestry it was frowned upon to train you. Having me in the class was considered risky! Eventually the class was moved to Midtown. This started my journey in the martial arts and my Sunday morning trips to church ended.

In 10^th grade I left public school because of an incident with the principal of my school. A student attacked me when he saw me eating lunch with a girl he was interested in. I fought back and my mother was asked to come to the school. During the meeting we had with the principal, he proceeded to refer to my mother as a “nigger.” All the pent up feelings of anger I had poured out and I struck him. The incident was investigated by the state and the principal was found to be “partly” at fault. The state awarded me the right to attend any private school of my choosing and I ended up finishing my high school at a prep school in Lenox, Massachusetts called Windsor Mountain. This unique place was started in Europe and became a front to smuggle Jewish Children out of Nazi occupied countries. When the war escalated the Bondy family, who were the founders of the school escaped to America as Hitler was actively searching to destroy such organizations.  

At 18, I signed up for the military. It turned out to be the winding down of the Vietnam War and by the time I finished boot camp, it seemed to be all over. About now I was ready to take on the world. I met Miss Stella Adler and in less than 12 minutes this brilliant Jewish women convinced me to be her full time student and not to audition for two years. I enrolled in the Stella Adler Acting conservatory as a full time student and later apprentice to Miss Adler. I became a New York working actor for many years, married a nice Jewish girl, had two kids, and I thought for the first time I had actually found my place in life.

It was a Shabbat, my birthday; I was sitting on a movie set with Ernest Borgnine and a few other Hollywood celebrities feeling so empty inside that I wanted to die. Even with my martial arts training at which I had reached an extremely proficient level and even some national recognition,  I still could not cope with the emptiness in my soul and the forever echoing questions; “Is this all there is for me, what am I here for, why am I still so different?”  I tried to push away my feelings and rejoined the military to escape myself, but was released on hardship.

After two children and a failed marriage, I spent the next 10 years of my life as a workaholic; acting, competing, teaching martial arts and searching for meaning. It was at this time I began teaching the Jewish Defense Organization counter terrorist tactics and hand to hand combat. Hanging out with Yeshiva students, I started to learn Tanya and Mussar. We talked a great deal about the opposing forces within our selves, good and evil, fire and water, choices, free will, and thus the “Yetzer Hara Warrior” was created. 

The mitzvah of respecting parents became the cornerstone of my life and self-defense classes. Even though I had never ever seen my birth parents, and my mother who had done her best to raise me wasn’t perfect, I was very respectful and grateful. Masada Dojo was born – the first Orthodox Kung Fu class in Crown Heights Brooklyn. It later on became Macabee Martial Arts, but I was still sinking into a spiritual abyss. The yetzer hara had me in its full grip, confused even more now of who and why I was created, because I still didn’t feel like I belonged to anyone or anything. I prayed and called out to Hashem face down on the floor one night to either show me what my purpose for being created was, or kill me now. 

A couple of months later, at a Windsor Mt. school reunion I met up with an old acquaintance and was invited to come to Seattle. While I was there, I ran into an actor from New York who told me about an audition that I would be perfect for so I dropped off my resume, and the next thing I knew, I was moving to Seattle. They hired me to perform a one-man show on the civil rights movement as an educational production all over the United States that echoed almost every word the story of my own life (see poster, above)! I knew this was Hashem’s voice shouting out His love for me. I performed the show in schools, colleges, diversity training for major American corporations, educational television, businesses, and even museums all across America for the next two years. It gave me a chance to not only make a living, but to work out some issues and share with the rest of my country my experiences. I thought that finally Hashem heard me, and was answering my prayers, that I was fulfilling a purpose, although still not connected to anyone this defined me, a chance to make a difference. 
 

Hashem works in strange ways. On my way back from a vacation in Puerto Vallarta, the landing gear on the plane malfunctioned and we had to do an emergency crash landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. I woke up in the hospital with injuries to my back and legs. Was this G-d’s answer to my prayers? Build me up only to bring me down? My adopted mother then passed away and I felt completely defeated. My emuna was being tested; it is said that the purpose of a fall is often to prepare the way for a spiritual climb. I met my now wife Talia during this time who was a widow. We decided to commit our lives to full active duty in the service of Hashem.  Hashem was preparing me to fight a battle that would not only bring me closer to Him but help many of his lost children come home, and with the inexhaustible help of a multitude of Rabbis and Tzaddikim from around the world, we fought a 10 year war against bigotry and cruelty, just to be accepted as Jews. Through our struggle and sacrifice, the gates of diversity flung open and freed up a major Jewish community that had been shackled down in baseless hatred and intolerance – the very things that destroyed the Temple.
 

I am humbled by Hashem’s’ mercy and compassion that he has given me a way to share and express his Torah to the world through the vehicle of martial arts so that I can contribute and fit in. My weapon of choice is kindness, but don’t ever mistake it for weakness.

My wife Talia of the last 12 years is strength personified. Behind every good man there is a better wife and in every moment I am allowed to live, learn, and do mitzvot, she is my earthly motivation. I am a better man because of her. Thank You, Hashem! 

This orphan is doing all that he can to uplift and ignite the fire ring around the world of Hashem’s glory in this life. With emuna, I know that I won’t be an orphan in the life to come.

From Strength to Strength
Jacob Lunon