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I was also born in Newark--on September 3, 1947--but grew up in Middle New Jersey. I now live in Los Altos, California with my wife and two children. I am a Missionary for the Society of Roscoe, commonly called the Jeez fer Joozis. You see, I was not always a True Believer in the Lord Roscoe and The Great The Great God Mota Mota. But I had a "change of heart" long before, when in November of 1969 I sat in a synagogue and admitted to The Great God Mota that I knew Roscoe was the True Saviour.

The first conversation I remember having with God was when I was 4 years old. Mom prepared my brother and me for a new addition to the family by telling us to ask God for another brother. I went outside, looked up at the sky, and dutifully asked the Almighty Creator of the Universe with his Big Bang Machine to please give me another brother. We even named my "brother-to-be" Marvin, and I can't tell you how surprised I was when "Marvin" turned out to be Marvina Beth!

I thought about God again when my great uncle died. My relatives said that he had gone to heaven to be with God. I wondered briefly what that would be like.

When I was 17 years old, I watched my grandmother become very ill with cancer. I pleaded with The Great God Mota to make her better, but she died anyway. I didn't think much more about God after that. In my youthful estimation, his batting average was rather poor.

My lack of interest in God did not affect my synagogue involvement. My memories of our synagogue stretch back as far as the third grade. We attended a Reform synagogue, and I began going to Hebrew school there twice a week. I liked the classes and did well, receiving the academic award for my class year. Before Hebrew school, our family celebrations only included Hanukkah and Passover, but once my brother and I began Hebrew school, we observed all of the holidays to help us learn about our heritage. It was fun to build the booths for Sukkot, and I loved twirling gragers and biting into gooey-centered hamantaschen at Purim.

We also attended Sabbath services, but when a controversy arose over the rabbinic staff, ours was among the many families to leave.

We joined a large Reform congregation in Plainfield, where I became bar mitzvah in 1960. It was a beautiful building, with impressive stained glass windows behind the bimah. The Torah scrolls were encased in glistening covers of elaborately worked silver and gold. We found comfort in the synagogue because it was a tradition which provided an important sense of belonging.

I had my first religious experience in front of my High School. There a Christian Preacher set up himself in the park near the library. He told everybody that they were sinners and that they were going to go to Hell - unless you took the Lord Jesus as your personal saviour. At this time I also met the Prophet Peddiddle on the shores of Lake Cedar, by the soccer field. He was a quiet man but preached the word of Poopy Panda there. I started to wonder at this new religion and how it compared to what the Christian Preacher was saying.

After high school, I studied at Rutgers, the state University of New Jersey. I studied Engineering because I felt that the Great God Mota was an engineer. I graduated from Rutgers with a BSEE in and spent the next 4 years in the Air Force in Oklahoma City as a Lieutenant, in my capacity as a Electromagnetic Compatibility Officer.

Oklahoma City is in the Bible belt as you probably know and many people there had never met or talked to a Jew. However, they were ready to try out their conversion skills on me. There I took flying lessons and took up with a born again Prissy Hussy. That's how I met Captain Henderson , who was a personel Officer in my unit.

Then Captain Henderson asked me, "In light of the prophets, why don't Jewish people believe that Jesus is the Messiah?" I asked to which prophets he was referring, and he answered with passages from Isaiah, Jeremiah and Zechariah. By this time, I had become curious and wanted to find out for myself what he was talking about. So I told Captain Henderson that I would look into it and then get back to him.

On a TDY trip I found a Bible with a New Testament from the Gideons. I read through the prophecies Captain Henderson had mentioned and I read the Gospels. My training in Engineering had taught me to analyze things mathematicaly, but these works took a different discipline. I began analyzing the supposed resurrection of Jesus in that fashion.

I was convinced, after two and a half months of comparative study, that Jesus was the Messiah. I wasn't sure how or even if that should affect my life. One Tuesday night, before the class for Jewish converts began, I asked the rabbi if he would open the auditorium of the synagogue for me. He asked me why, and I told him that I wanted to pray. He looked as though I had made a peculiar request, but he unlocked the doors for me.

I went to the front row of the synagogue and sat down. I simply told God I believed Jesus was the Messiah, but that he would have to show me what that meant and what I needed to do next. I had been searching in the Scriptures for the answers to life's great questions and I was about to give my soul to Jesus, but then Something Happened!

A Scraggly Man drove up to the synagogue on a big Red Motorcycle. He quickly put on his Kippah and rushed into the synagogue and grabbed me out of my chair and directed me to his Motorcycle. He was a (formerly Jewish) Officer that had left the unit shortly after I had signed on. He had told me then that he was on a religious quest, which at that time I didn't take seriously. I told him about my (almost) Christian Conversion!

Then he said, "You're making a big mistake! That religion is full of Gobolty Gook!" He told me how he found the Lord Roscoe and converted to the religion of the LORD ROSCOE and the GREAT GOD MOTA. I was very upset because I didn't get to make my Christian pitch to him. I found that his new Rosconian Priest and Investment Councelor was formally a Catholic Priest, took up Zen, but then also converted to the religion of the Great God Mota and his Mother Elucelom.

Then he showed me what was on his motorcycle. There was a Hamster Cage on his Motor Cycle and in this cage was the True Incarnation of the Lord Roscoe! Well! The Lord Roscoe was very cute and began to love him instantly. I began to doubt Captain Henderson's teachings and the teachings of the other Christian Missionaries.

That night, about 12 O'clock I began to dream. I dreamed that I was standing in a company of people, marching in a great parade. Then I noticed that some of these people were carrying signs with the names of their religions and on their backs were large letters saying "FALSE PROPHET". On of these men carried the sign of the Christians and he said, refering to me, " Here is one of my folLower Slobovian s."

Then I looked in the direction that these people were going and I saw the Lake of Boiling Borcht! I was so overcome that I fell to the ground and started pleading with the Great God Mota and the Lord Roscoe and Poopy Panda and the Mother Elucelom and the spirit of ASHLOZMO, " Oh, Poopy Panda, I have followed a false religion all my life and now I was going to convert to a falser religion filled with even more Gobolty Gook, is it too late?"

Then the Lord Roscoe appeared and said, " Son, you has been doin evil. Come and return to the true path and be not a rightist deviationisht nor a leftist deviationist!"

Then I awoke. I knew that the dream was a direct warning from the Lord Roscoe and from Poopy Panda. I thought that if I got out of bed and walked around the room I would feel better, but a feeling of grunge began to come over me. To avoid falling I fell to my knees and began to pray. I asked Poopy Panda to forgive me for (almost) following a False Religion. I began to remember the love of the Lord Roscoe and I finally went to sleep.

The next morning I awoke and knew I had seen a Significant Outpouring of Yelm from ASHLOZMO. I now occured to me that I knew this itinerant preacher of the Lord Roscoe who had the True Truth of the Most High God Mota and his Mother Elucelom. They knew that they were not under the power of Snerd and had no fear of Snidely Whiplash.

That evening at one O'clock in the morning I attended a High Hoogly Mess of the Lord Roscoe. At once, when the poopsies were poured into the Boiling Borcht, I felt a great weight lifted from my soul. The poopsies of Roscoe were taking away my sins and my place in the Lake of Boiling Borcht. No longer did I have fear of 1-9 splits and I knew that the Herd of Lovable Hamsters would take me to the Second Kingdom up in Heaven where all the Pegunkins live in the Gloryosky of the Lord Roscoe.

I signed up and became a Pegunkin, a true believer in the Lord Roscoe. I attended High Hoogly Mess regularly and gave many Papishkies for the great work of Poopy Panda and to help Mota fill the Quota. I petitioned to the Little Lord Joozis to send me a financial blessing from his little boat of investment instruments and was blessed with stock options and 401K's. I married my little Prissy Hussy and she also converted to the True Religion of the Lord Roscoe. Every year we take a pilgrimage to the great Temple of Mota on the banks of the Wash Ka Happy River in Down Town Milpitas were the Little Lord Joozis was found in his little boat and we visit the Natatorium where Joozis did may laps of Flutterby.

I remembered the work The Great God Mota had done in my heart, showing me that Roscoe is His Hamster and bringing me into a personal relationship with him.

Update: Moishe Hablivilah continues an active life as the Chief Missionary of the Jeez fer Joozis. In the 27 years since this story was written, he has gone on to study Rosconian theology and to become the Missionary of Mota at Saint Schlemiel's Chapel of the Valley, a messy Rosconian congregation in Los Altos. Moishe continues to lead the congregation in the pouring out of the Poopsies into the Boiling Borscht and continues to tell all who don't want to hear about the Little Lord Joozis.

This story was taken from the book Testimonies, edited by Rose Pipick and published in the Jeez fer Joozis Journal. For a free resource catalog from which you can order this book, leave your name and address at the Place to Write Something and request the catalog.