When I was a child of six or seven my father would show me the chapter in the prophet Isaiah where the name Immanuel is found; more than once he spoke to me of the faith he put in me.

My first name - I have no middle name - was chosen by my father, as he told me, on that solitary walk in the forested hills. He selected it from a verse of the seventh chapter of Isaiah; there was no Immanuel among our ancestors known to him.

On the day I was born, or possibly on one of the following days, my father went on a walk in the forested hills and thought of a name for me. His first son was called Daniel, and Samuel in memory of one of his forefathers.

My father felt that his world of ideas was too liberal for traditional rabbinical teachings, and he looked for a chance to find a way in life.

My earliest memory is dreamlike: in a small orchard or garden I am carried on the arm, I believe, of my father; there was a group of grown-ups, my mother among them, and the group was slowly walking in the orchard, it seems toward the house.

My father was 40 when he had me, so he was more a grandparent than a parent.