Comprehending the fortune that I receive today, I acknowledge all the unbelievable hardships my family endured 100 years ago to get me where I am today. My family on my mother's side had trouble staying in one place constantly moving around Europe, given the difficulties for Jewish families trying to find work in the early 1900s. My great-great-grandfather Bernard Waxman was moving all through the continent with his family. First in Poland, then up through Russia, and all the way west towards England. In search of a place where they could find a living and opportunity for their children Bernard and his wife, Etta moved to America by boat, going to Ellis Island, and a tenement. In America, Bernard found work as a jeweler, first as an apprentice and eventually owning his shop. Money was very tight back then so Etta contributed to the family by cooking dinner for dozens in the tenement charging 20 cents per person, which is worth a little more than four dollars in today's money. These difficult years of saving for the future led the next generations to come into our family to succeed, and never move out of state from where we came from.

– Jonathan Schlossberg

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