Family History by Sid

     Manuel Morse Rogoff          Manuel Morse Rogoff was born February 12, 1917 in Mount Pleasant, PA. He was the son of Jacob and Edith Rogoff. Edith was my grandfather’s first cousin. Manny was the third of four children having two brothers and a sister. Jacob died when Manny was a teenager and Manny and his brothers took over and ran the family auto wrecking business in Leetsdale, PA. The business was very successful mostly due to the hard work and excellent management skills of Manny. As World War Two approached Manny, like many other young men, enlisted in the Army to fight the Germans.        His WWII experience was far from typical. He served in the Army Air Corps as a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator and was stationed in England. Their crew flew several missions over Europe. One time during a mission over Norway, bad weather caused them to lose visual contact with the rest of their squadron. However, being ...

       Passover is the time of year that we appreciate our freedoms and strive to afford those freedoms to all people everywhere. The story of Passover is an ancient one that we have repeated over the years, assembling as families, teaching our children, and establishing new traditions that our descendants will relish and repeat with joy and fond recollection of their elders.       Each family’s seder is different. One will be traditional with all prayers in hebrew and not a page in the hagadah that is not read. Another will be filled with song and music while still another is more modern and centered on the child’s eye view. The seder may be one of the oldest continually celebrated religious traditions in the world but surprisingly it has a very modern component. It is multifunctional. It is a religious service complete with prayers, psalms, and hymns. It is a history lesson. There are moral and ethical themes discussed and there is even ...