It was on this date, January 2, 1920, that American science and science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov was born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov in Petrovichi, Russia. He was educated in Orthodox Judaism, but religion had little influence throughout Asimov’s childhood. His father “didn’t even bother to have me bar mitzvahed at the age of thirteen,” Asimov remarked later. He grew up hearing the Yiddish tales of Sholem Aleichem, but his parents emigrated to New York City when he was three, so Asimov learned English and Yiddish, but never Russian. “My real education,” Asimov wrote in one of his memoirs...

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Originally published January 2003 by Ronald Bruce Meyer.