Parent Spotlight Mr. Nati Tzabari

I have three children, who are five, twelve, and sixteen years old. We were living in San Diego, and some problems with my parnassah were coming up, so we moved to Las Vegas. We wanted to come a little bit closer to Hashem, to be shomer Torah and mitzvot. In Las Vegas it would be cheaper, we could live near the synagogue, and we could give the kids a chinuch yehudi, a Jewish education. When we came, parnassah was still difficult, and my children were in public school. It was tough for me the whole time they were there. The only reason I was okay with it was that at home, we were Orthodox: we keep mitzvot and Shabbat. We tried to give our children a “light Orthodox education” at home, teaching them the basics, but in school they give them different guidance. My oldest son is autistic, and in the special school, he had some problems with anti-semitism. At such a young age, it’s pretty tough for them to be in a public school, but I couldn’t afford a Jewish day school.

In Las Vegas, I was working in an Israeli kosher store. One day, I was talking to a lady in line who introduced me to Rabbi Moshe Orlowek, the director of the Las Vegas branch of Chinuch Yehudi. He referred us to Chinuch Yehudi, which helped us to move our children to a Jewish day school. My wife worked for the school, and we were able to move the children to Yeshiva Day School.
When my children switched schools, they really liked it. They grew up in a Jewish home, but they went to a public school, so they didn’t know there were schools where all the kids were Jewish. On their first day, they were so excited. They were so happy to find other children they could relate to, who understood them and knew about chagim. After a year, we found that Yeshiva Day School was too far from home, and transportation was expensive.Therefore, we moved the kids to the Chabad day school, which is much closer to home.

During their first year in Jewish day school, my sons began learning to read and write in Hebrew. One Shabbat, my middle son decided he wanted to read Birkat Hamazon. You know how it is when they start reading – it’s really, really slow. It took about 45 minutes on Friday night to read Birkat Hamazon, but my wife and I were so excited that he could pray in Hebrew, so we just sat and listened to him. It was so fun! But on the other hand, it was also so tiring. The next Shabbat, my youngest son came over and said he also wanted to read Birkat Hamazon. I couldn’t handle that, so I just let him read Borei Nefashot because it’s way shorter. But since he’s younger, that ended up taking 45 minutes, too! I grew up in a very Orthodox family in Israel, but when I came to the United States things were different. When I got married, it was very important to me suddenly to keep Judaism in my life and in my home. My kids grew up here and they are Americans, not Israeli like me. They didn’t know how to read or write in Hebrew, so the moment that they started learning was so exciting to me. It was so emotional to hear them at home reading in Hebrew.