The Holocaust has overshadowed all of this. It's such an emotional thing. Most people, even Jews, equate Jews with the Holocaust. American Jewish history has taken a backseat.

This is not to be denied, not forgotten. But what we are focusing on are the good things, the contributions Jews have made. We want to give young Jews a sense of pride in what our people have accomplished.

We don't want to forget the larger story of immigration and that everyone has come from somewhere else. American Jews have contributed so much, and we thought we should have a month to commemorate that.

We ran across many people who lost everything. They all wanted to share their story, and it's important to listen. In the course of listening to one such story, Ed met a woman who used to be in the trucking business but lost everything, and he promised her a truck.

People shouldn't be disappointed by the studies. It's just a wake-up call that simply reducing your total dietary fat is not enough.

I begged her to get another job. I begged her to date other people and start a different life. But there was no way and nothing I could have done at that time and no one I could have said this to, because it would have been unbelievable.