I just came back from Knoxville, Tennessee, where I gave a speech on balance and tolerance at a wonderful Women’s Expo. I really kind of opened up a debate that I found to be very interesting about this amazing tapestry of a country that we have.

I think it’s really important right now for Americans not to be Ameri-centric… not to think that everything American is what’s right and everything else isn’t, nor try to dictate American values to everybody else. I don’t want to get political about this. What I really want to do is to celebrate the diversity that we have in this country and what a miracle it is that everyone who is an American basically came at some point from somewhere else or their parents did or their grandparents, or great-grandparents, whatever.

I was speaking to a friend, a friend’s stepson just the other day who told me a story I knew nothing about. I knew his father came from Poland, but what I didn’t know is his father had escaped from a concentration camp, that his entire family was wiped out, and that he’d been given another name. And the name that his son grew up with and always believed was his name was in fact not his name or his family’s name at all.

And his son who is now in his 30s has chosen to change his name from the one he has always been known by. He’s changing it to the original name of the family that was wiped out in the Holocaust. This is a man who did not practice Judaism, doesn’t know anything about being Jewish, and doesn’t particularly intend to take on that religion. But, just felt that part of his roots were very important to the future of him and his own, and any family he might have in the future.

P.S. Thank you for all your kind words and messages on the blog. I am deeply touched.