My Un-Birthday

No more birthday parties for me. Cancel the cards and candles.

No, I'm not being morbid, and I'm not going gloom and doom, Heaven forbid. On the contrary. I'm celebrating. I have been declared ageless.

OK, laugh if you want, but I'm not the first to step outside the time zone. In 2019, Smithsonian Magazine reported that on the Norwegian island of Sommarøy, north of the Arctic Circle, "the sun does not rise. And for 69 days during summer, it doesn't set."

The locals decided to have the time of their lives and launched a campaign to declare the island "the world's first time-free zone."

I thought of moving to Sommarøy. For me, a place with no clocks was a surrealist dream come true. Then I realized that keeping the Sabbath would be a challenge. And an unending Yom Kippur fast would be anything but fast. It's not pure paradise in Never Never Land.

But I'm getting ahead of (or is it behind?) myself.

What does this have to do with my birthday?

And who was it who made the declaration taking me out of the running?

(Or is it more like the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, who told Alice, "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"?)

OK, so how did I get to where

I'm not getting anywhere? Or anywhen? (Yes, it is a word. Ask me later.)

If you're not confused yet, don't worry, you will be.

It all started in 1967, when I was in yeshivah (rabbinical seminary) in Israel. Eight days after the liberation of Jerusalem, I found myself at the Kosel (Western Wall) on Shavuos, in which Jews the world over re-enact the Giving of the Torah.

Standing at the Wall the first time, I suddenly knew where I belonged.

I did go back to New York, where, a few years later,thank G od, I met my wife. After we got married, we moved to Jerusalem. Then, circumstances brought us back Stateside —- twice. But ever since spending Simchas Torah under fire in Ramat Beit Shemesh last year, we've been working on moving there permanently and have been jumping (OK, crawl- ing) through bureaucratic hoops.

In all fairness, when my grandparents immigrated from Belarus and Romania to New York, they didn't have an easy time. It comes with the territory. It's hard to keep that in mind, though, while processing stacks of documents … with apostilles. If you've never dealt with global officialdom, an apostille is a document certified for international recognition. It's notarization with ribbons and bows. Sometimes literally.

One of the documents I need is my birth certificate. Unfortunately, I don't have mine. But in this case, even if I did, it wouldn't help.

OK, pull up a chair. This takes some explaining. I was born at a time before American parents proudly put Hebrew names on birth certificates. Thus, there was a generation of Morrises and Harrys.

(I know a marketing consultant named Paul Goldberg. Paul isn't Jewish, and a friend said, "Paul; this is crazy. You have to change your name!" Paul said, "You're right. I think I will." "Great! What are you going to change it to?" "Morris.")

My parents officially named me Fred Michael, corresponding to Feivel Mordechai.

Cut to the '70s. We were living in Jerusalem and my wife went to the U.S. consulate to register the birth of our first child, Naama. (Her passport says she was born in "Jerusalem." But no country. Long story; ask me later.)

But a few months earlier, when I registered for my teudat zehut (ID card), I filled out a form — for five Israeli pounds, then $1.25 — to officially register my name as Mordechai Schiller.

When my wife, aka Peshe, handed the clerk at the consulate the birth certificate and our passports, he looked at the papers and said, "The birth certificate says the father is Mordechai Schiller. But the passport says Fred Schiller.

Which one is the father?" "They're the same person. He changed his name."

So I had to go to the consulate, with a copy and a translation of the certificate from the Ministry of the Interior that I had changed my name. Then they took my passport and stamped it:

"This passport is amended to read in bearer's name Mordechai Schiller, as changed by Court Order." And it was signed by John F. Tefft, vice consul of the United States of America.

Ever since then, my name was legally and officially Mordechai Schiller — changed

by U.S. State Department fiat. Cut to 2024.

I dutifully tried to get my birth certificate from the inner sanctum where New York City keeps its vital records. Only, I couldn't get it. Because all my IDs say Mordechai Schiller. The only proof I have of the name Fred Michael is an expired passport, which says "name changed by court order." But there was no court involved.

Catch-22.

Not to compare, but it's not as bad as what happened to Constantin Reliu. He was declared dead after he left Romania to work in Turkey in 1992 and didn't keep in touch with his family. In 2013, his wife reported him dead and was issued a death certificate. He was expelled from Turkey because his working papers had expired, only to come back to Romania and find out he expired. It took him two years to come back to life.

Back to Through the Looking Glass:

Humpty Dumpty told Alice that he got his cravat [tie] for an "un-birthday present." And he explained that "there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents. And only one for birthday Presents."

All in all, I figure I'm coming out ahead. So wish me Happy Un-birthday. And keep those cards coming. (You can still skip the candles.)

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Mordechai Schiller is a copyeditor and columnist at Hamodia, the Daily Newspaper of Torah Jewry, where this first appeared.