I've known for years that my great-great-great-grandfather Alexander Neibaur was the first Jew to convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was a dentist and a linguist, and he had converted to Christianity years before joining this church.
But living on a street of Hasidic Jews made me curious for the first time about his parents who stayed Jews. I went on Family Search and learned that there were several family sources about Nathan Neibaur. He was a Polish Jew who knew several languages. So, according to family legend, Napoleon once approached him asking him to be a spy. He didn't like what Napoleon was doing at that point, so he told him no.
I wish I could verify this story from non-family sources. It's also claimed that he was Napoleon's personal physician (which is why Napoleon knew to reach out to him later about the spy thing), but I can't find any evidence of that. Still, I like the idea of him standing up to Napoleon.
Then I realized something. The Jews on our street are from Eastern Europe. I apparently have Polish Jewish ancestry. Maybe we're related!
So today, I prayed and told God, "This is something I'd like to figure out. But I'm going to need Your help to put someone in my path who's willing to talk about this with me. I can't just go knocking on doors and asking."
After Julia woke up from a nap, she wanted to go outside. It was cold, but we would both be fine with coats on. So off we went to the park.
Though we weren't the only ones there, there were no Jewish families. So I decided to walk to the other nearby park (the one that still had a splash pad spraying water when we drove past it on the way to church today). No one there either. But I had fun walking around with her.
I decided that it was time to go back to our street since that's where the families live. Julia was screaming that she wanted to be out of her stroller, and the only way I could get her to calm down was to point out that a baby in the stroller walking parallel with us on the other side of the street was staring at her. So they stared at each other until we reached our house.
It turned out that Julia wasn't ready to go inside yet. She just didn't want to be in the stroller. So I let her out and followed her around, redirecting her from the curb whenever she wanted to step on leaves in the road. School buses occasionally went down the road, pausing to let little boys in kippahs out to their waiting moms.
Julia couldn't make up her mind where she wanted to go. She would take several steps forward, then turn around and walk back to where we had been before. She would shriek when I picked her up and say "no" if anyone walking by said hi to her. At some point I decided that we had walked back and forth by our house too many times, and it was time to cross the street. She continued her random walk, and eventually she started showing more and more interest in stepping down into the road. She would also wander onto people's driveways and crunch leaves on their front lawns.
A minivan stopped on the side of the road and parked. An older Jewish man got out and slowly got out of the car. But he seemed interested in watching her walk up the sidewalk and down again, shrieking whenever I redirected her from the road. She wanted to walk back and forth past that minivan over and over.
I made eye contact with the man and smiled. "She's the boss," he said wryly. This was the first time a man on the street had ever spoken to me (or even made eye contact). Was this my chance to ask my question?
It's easier to be awkward when you know you're moving soon. So yes. This was my chance.
"I just found out I'm descended from a Polish Jew. Neibaur. Is anyone in this neighborhood from Poland?"
He probably had to think for a minute to decode my Utah English accent and the unexpected question I had launched at him. "No, people here come from Hungary and Romania. So you're a Jew?"
"No, I'm a Christian. He was a Jew but became a Christian."
"If your mother is a Jew, then you are a Jew too," he said.
"It's from my father's side," I said apologetically.
And then we talked for just a few minutes about kids and grandkids and what my husband was doing in Montreal in the first place. He said he lived on this street for 50 years. And there are high taxes.
Julia wanted to run off again, and I figured that if I tried to keep holding her, she would shriek enough that we wouldn't be able to talk more. So I ended the conversation abruptly and hurried to catch up to her.
It was all a little awkward, but it was still nice talking to one of my neighbors for a few minutes. And thanks to Julia and her frenzied style of walking back and forth, God put someone in my path to help me answer my question.
Thanks, Julia. And thanks, God.
