“I had this very intense love for Judaism at a very early age.” “By high school I began to have very deep friendships with Jews from other parts of the state and other parts of the country ,” Morris said. His family attended Congregation Emanu-El Israel in Greensburg, and Morris became active in its Reform youth group, NFTY. But instead of finding that experience isolating, Morris sought Jewish connection elsewhere. While attending public school in Connellsville, Morris never had more than one other Jew in his class and never more than three or four other Jews in the whole school. “I felt like this Jewish piece of my identity was something special and something unusual and something that from a very early age I had to explain to all of my non-Jewish friends - and in reality, I think I was explaining it to myself.” “My experience growing up as a Jew in Connellsville is what ultimately led me to become a rabbi and an educator,” Morris said. Get The Jewish Chronicle Weekly Edition by email and never miss our top stories
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Growing up in Connellsville, in a family that was not particularly observant, Morris nonetheless always thought of being Jewish as “special,” and from an early age, took it upon himself to try to encourage his family to enlarge their ritual observances, as well as educate his non-Jewish friends about what it meant to be a Jew.