But share and tell me a memory Why does it matter
to you? I want to hear your story Your point
of view Tell me what happened to you And welcome
back to Tell Me What Happened, the podcast that
features folks from all walks of life telling
us one true childhood story, and how that story,
how that event, how that experience has impacted
who they are as an adult. I'm your host, Jay
Rehack, and like you, I've had all kinds of childhood
experiences that impacted who I am. But I'd like
to think that everything that ever happened to
me has made me a better person. I'm not saying
that's actually true, but that's what I'd like
to think. Today is the first day of season five
of Tell Me What Happened, and I'm extremely happy
to have a good friend of mine, a man I've known
for, I'm going to say 20 years, but maybe that's
not quite right, David Kovacs. David has been
a Chicago -based writer of scripts for videos,
films, and plays for more than 40 years. He and
his wife Patti, who I also happen to know quite
well, have also been involved in interfaith dialogue
and are two of the founders of the Chicago Interfaith
Family School. David has always been fascinated
by how the media, spirituality, and learning
can intersect in ways that intrigue and involve
audiences. One of his first script writing positions
was in the 1970s with the Emmy -winning children's
program, The Magic Door. produced by WBBM -TD
and the Chicago Board of Rabbis. In 2019, a documentary
he co -produced, Leaps of Faiths, premiered on
WTTW and at the Chicago Jewish Film Festival.
Available online, the movie explores the joys,
challenges, and mysteries of interfaith marriage.
Welcome to the show, David Kovacs. Hey Jay, it's
so nice to be with you. Thanks for inviting me.
David, we ran into each other. about two months
ago during a Hanukkah celebration at Old St.
Pat's in Chicago. And at the time, I told you
about season five. We're looking for great guests.
And you were kind enough to be willing to come
on the show. So, David, quick question, and we're
gonna get on with it. Are you ready to tell your
story? I am. Okay. Well, I had a really very
good childhood. There was so much of it that
was really a blessing to me and my sister and
my mom and dad in so many ways. But I think the
telling event in my childhood... was due to my
father's illness. He had what was called reactive
depression in those days, but I'm pretty sure
it was bipolar disorder. And around when I was
10, he started to feel some stresses and strains
emotionally and mentally. This led to a couple
of years of therapy and then a couple of years
in and out of the psychiatric institute at the
old Michael Reese Hospital. And ultimately, he
committed suicide and it was on my 14th birthday.
I'm convinced that he didn't remember that it
was my birthday, but it of course profoundly
affected me. Later a therapist said, this is
my father who jumped off a building, he said
maybe he thought he could fly and maybe his whole...
way of looking at life was just too much for
him to bear. And of course, this was in 1966.
There were very few medications for what he had.
Lithium, he was in a lithium trial. There was
electroshock therapy, but his outlook was pretty
grim. Today, of course, there's many therapies
for bipolar disorder. But I, of course, it was
a savage blow for... my mother, my sister, and
I. But the thing that I most remember about it
was going to see his psychiatrist who said to
my sister and I, well, there's two ways you can
look at this. One way for the rest of your life.
One way is to say, well, everything that challenges
me or that defeats me as I grow up is because
my father committed suicide. Or you could say,
I got through this, I can get through anything.
Well, the more I thought about it, the more I
chose door number two. And I resolved that I
could get through anything. But of course, I'm
14. You know, I don't know what life has in store
for me. And it was a big question mark. How will
I get through everything? And so that's the impact
that that experience had. And I know you're going
to ask me how it affected my life as an adult.
And that's probably what you want to ask. It
really is. I gotta take a minute and get myself
together. I've never experienced what you've
experienced by any imagination, but I've experienced
it close. I've had close relatives and others
that have taken their lives, and I struggle with
even understanding how anybody can recover and
keep going. But I do have to ask you the question,
which is my question from the show, which is,
how do you think that horrific event impacted
who you are today? Well, I thought about that
a lot. And before I get into it, I just want
to say to anybody who's had the experience of
losing someone to suicide, a friend and their
family, my heart is out to you. It is one of
the most devastating experiences one can go through.
And I hope that you, if it's happened to you,
have found strength. So. Ironically, I went off
to college and I came back to Chicago. This is
in the 1970s. I was a theater major and I'm coming
back to Chicago and I'm doing shows in off -loop
theaters and just trying to figure out how I'm
going to make it through my 20s and sketch comedy
and plays and maybe some writing. And it's a
very challenging thing. And I can get through
anything. I struggled with that a lot. But I
had a lot of great feedback. I met some wonderful
people. And I said, this is the life for me.
I'm going to figure out how I'm going to do this.
So I go ahead. And the writing. takes the precedence
over the acting. And I said, I really want to
explore what this writing is. And I get a job
with a children's TV show that's produced in
Chicago. Now in the 70s, there was Bozo Circus,
there was BJ Dirty Dragon, and there was The
Magic Door on Channel 2. Those were the locally
produced shows for kids. And the Magic Door was
produced by the Board of Rabbis. It was a half
-hour puppet show with a little guy named Tiny
Tov, which means little good guy, and they shot
him down on a chroma key. So he was little, and
he could talk to the puppets. And what was amazing
about that was I could write a half -hour script,
which I got $125 for. In those days, even that
wasn't very much. But it was the magic door to
my career because the voiceovers over the puppets
were people who spent their lives doing industrial
films and voiceovers and commercials. And they
picked up something in what I was writing that
said, do you want to get paid for writing professionally?
And they mentored me into the business. And God
bless. all the mentors out there who have helped
people along because I don't know where I'd be
without them. But what was interesting, Jay,
is I had grown up Jewish, reformed you. I didn't
even get a bar mitzvah because when I was 13,
which is traditional bar mitzvah age, my dad
was in and out of the hospital. I didn't want
to do that. But here comes my Judaism back into
this writing for television thing. And I just
kind of rode with it. And I said, I'm going to.
take this as far as it can go. Well then, I meet
this wonderful woman, Patti, Patti Russ. She
was an actress. We met through theater. And Patti
is Catholic, and I'm Jewish. And I'm going, okay,
I think this is kind of interesting. It may be
a little hard. We talked to rabbis who said,
don't do it. One rabbi, in fact, said, David,
I think Patti probably goes to mass more than
you go to temple. I said, yeah. She said, well,
why don't you just raise your kids Catholic,
the Jews will be fine without you. And I so I
kind of abandoned him as a spiritual consultant.
But Patty got me hooked into this amazing community
at Old St. Patrick's Church, which had just been
revitalized in the 80s. And she was teaching
at the Chicago Academy for the Arts, which rented
space from them. And we sat down with Father
John Cusick, who said, basically, he said, you're
in love, you're in God, I'm in the God business,
how can I help you? And we said, well, we're
trying to figure this out. And he said, you know,
I've been thinking about starting a group of
Jewish and Catholic couples. And that became
the Jewish Catholic Dialogue Group and the Family
School, which the, you mentioned, you and Susan
were, and your daughters were part of it for
so many years, became such a big part of our
lives, we said, We can get together with other
families and we can teach our kids the great
traditions of Judaism and Christianity. And we
can do it as a Sunday school and maybe we can
make this work. Well, that was 32 years ago.
It's been part of our lives. ever since, and
we're still very happy to be doing it. And you
and Susan, your wife, who sings for our services
so beautifully. And no, we've made wonderful
friends through this. But here comes religion
back into my life. And I didn't imagine that
I would enjoy it so much. And it answered the
question for me. I can get through this. I can
get through anything because religion has a pediatric
dimension. of Sunday school and growing up and
all that, and it has an adult dimension. And
religion is very different as an adult. You kind
of go, what do you do when life hits you in the
gut? Where do you go? Who do you turn to? What's
your community? Where's something, a sense of
something larger than what you are? And so I
kind of re -encountered religion on an entirely
different level. And I've gotten so much out
of it that, yes, I think I got through that.
I can get through anything. And it's been tremendously
rewarding. Still amazing. Like I say, you know,
I was a part of the family school back in the
day. And this is a little bit of a digression,
but, you know, you and Patty were definitely
inspirational. I know you actually helped create
the entire program that that, you know, I was
a part of what my children were a part of for
a long time. And my Hard question to you, I've
already sort of asked it, but do you think that
your faith helped put you through what you went
through or, I mean, it could also be just that
you married a wonderful woman and that could
be it too, you know what I'm saying, was it?
No, I'm not in any way. denigrating formal religion,
but I probably shouldn't even be asking this
question, but you think it's, it was Judaism
or you think it was Patti Kovacs or a combination
of both? It's a great question. I think what
we've done and what you and hundreds, literally
hundreds of other couples have done is we've
seen the other faith that we didn't grow up with
in a new light, and we've relearned the faith
that we did grow up with. Definitely, when everything
came down on me in my teens, I never thought
religion would be a help to any of this. I thought
theater would. I thought writing might. I thought
maybe television might. That was what I got up
and got me going in the morning is thinking about
how can I write the next thing or create the
next program or whatever. But I think that having
two religions in your life is like speaking two
languages or growing up interculturally. You
are endlessly challenged because great religion
is a great search for truth. is bigger than us.
And John Cusick gave us the metaphor for it.
It's like it's a lens to look at life. And I
think I've got two pairs of glasses. I've got
my night driving glasses and my day driving glasses
and my reading glasses. And sometimes I look
at life through a Jewish lens and sometimes I
look at it through a Catholic lens. And I never
thought that I would find anything meaningful
in that respect. And it's just continued to surprise
me. That's so cool. This is really about you
and not about me, but I just have to interject
one point, which was when my wife went to her
rabbi. He said, forget it. Just don't do it.
And we still went through it. But then when we
met your group, I say your group because you
created it. You helped create it. You were a
founder. I was like, oh yeah, there are people
out there. You know, it's not just Susan and
I against the world type thing. I mean, I kind
of knew that, but there was no actual, I don't
know if there's an actual group of cool, I call
them cool people, but maybe that's a little bit
of a... That's a judgment call. But anyway, to
meet people who are of like mind, who are trying
to figure out how do we raise our children in
a way that is ethically responsible and also
respectful of each other's religion. When I got
married, neither one of us wanted to convert.
That was just, you know, I was a little bit too
Catholic or whatever that word is. Her Judaism
was, you know... real and intense and it's like
now we're not going to change we can respect
both each other's religion but it was great to
get to family school because We're stronger than
with the kids, because that's the hard question
usually of how you're going to raise the kids.
Right. And I would say to any of your listeners
who are interested in what this family school
is, go online, check out our website. We're welcoming.
So many people are marrying interfaith and marrying
interculturally. We welcome anybody. You don't
have to be Catholic. It's Jewish and Christian.
We've even had some people who are totally atheist
and agnostic. and they're welcome too. And we
just think all religion is interesting. In fact,
we made a documentary, you mentioned the documentary
that was on Channel 11, Leaps of Faiths. And
it is confusing because there's Leaps of Faith,
which is another. But there's two S's, leaps
and faiths, and it's online. It's on Amazon.
We're going to repost it on YouTube shortly.
But this gets into the questions of how do you
make it work in a marriage? How do you raise
the kids? What does this mean for Judaism? Is
Judaism going to survive this? I think Judaism
is going to thrive with this because it allows
people to honor their partner's religion without
asking them to necessarily convert. opens eyes
and the kids love it because there's other kids
and And for them to they grumble about getting
up on Sunday morning They always did but they
love it when they get there and by the time there
is graders Their eyes have been opened and they
get it and they're ready to go out into the world
Well, thank you for coming on this show David
and telling us that profoundly sad story that
In the end, the resurrection in my hand. I'll
go there with it. Relax. I hope the right word
is, that may sound a little bit too Christian,
but the point is that you thrive, you survive,
you made it through. It's amazing. I'm always
impressed with strong people. So anyway, thank
you for coming on the show. Thank you for having
me. All right, folks. Well, that's our show.
Like, again, thank David Kovacs for his profound
story. I'd like to thank my sponsor, Sightlining
Publishing, publishers of quality books and creator
of the new 10 by 10 Black Hole Chess game. If
you're interested, check out blackholechess .com
and learn a new way to play the game because
pawn to e4 does not work in my game. Alright,
until next time, this is Jay React asking you
all to please stay safe out there and try not
to hurt anybody.