Bill Harris (1928-1987), my father, was a brilliant MIT-educated electrical engineer whose life was profoundly transformed by love and family. Born in St. Louis to a socially and politically conservative Jewish family that was distant from religious practice, Bill spent his early career as an introverted “confirmed bachelor,” working on military and aerospace projects including ballistic missile guidance systems and hydrogen bomb testing.
At 31, my dad survived a nearly fatal heart attack that would impact the rest of his life. At 37, he met my mom, Marie Elkouby, an effervescent Moroccan-Israeli immigrant 11 years his junior. Despite their stark differences – he was reserved, highly educated, and conservative; she was expressive, self-taught, and from a large Mizrahi family – they fell in love. They married with mutual conditions: she wanted Jewish observance and annual trips to Israel to visit family; he wanted to limit their family to one child due to his heart condition.
Their marriage catalyzed remarkable changes in Bill. Through Marie, this reserved Midwesterner discovered joy, laughter, and physical affection. Though Marie worried about his reaction to her large, struggling immigrant family in Israel, Bill embraced them wholeheartedly. He learned Hebrew, bought her parents a better apartment in Tel Aviv, and supported various family members who came to stay with them in America. He became a loving, physically affectionate father to me (born 1969), despite his declining health limiting our activities together.
Bill’s damaged heart remained a constant concern. In 1987, during my freshman year of college, my dad suffered a fatal heart attack at home. About twenty members of my mom’s family borrowed money and obtained emergency visas to attend his funeral in St. Louis and sit shiva with us. Their emotionally open Moroccan-Jewish grieving style contrasted sharply with the reserved mourning of my dad’s Midwestern Jewish family.
Thirty-seven years later, I still deeply miss my father and wish he could have met my wife and children. I also wonder how my conservative but democracy-loving father would have navigated today’s political landscape.
My dad was a man transformed by love – from a reserved, culturally isolated engineer to someone who embraced a vibrant cross-cultural family life. Despite his shortened life, he left a lasting legacy through his fusion of Midwestern Jewish and Moroccan-Israeli traditions, his dedication to family, and his capacity for personal growth and change through love.
–Rabbi Maurice Harris
