David Peter דוד פטר

אי-ציות לבג"ץ. להם מותר.

My mother was held at gunpoint twice in Caracas. The second time it happened she said we were moving to America. We knew no one and we did not have much. But my parents always taught us that in this country we could do or be anything if we worked hard and treated people with respect. Years later, while I was playing football and baseball in college, I got a call from my father. He said that my grandfather, Izu, was dying of cancer back in Venezuela. He said, “Hey, if you want to see him, you got to come back.” We flew back to Caracas, and it was in the middle of an almost revolution because the dictator, Hugo Chávez, petitioned the Supreme Court to run again for office. He won in 1998 and was allowed to only serve one five-year term. The Supreme Court, to their credit, blocked him because it violated the constitution. What did he do? He packed the Supreme Court his buddies, and he petitioned for reconsideration. Now they ruled he could run again, as many times as he wanted to. And he did. He was the dictator until 2013 when he died. After that decision came down, there were massive protests and that happened to coincide with the trip to see my grandfather. My grandfather told me to take him out on the balcony to play chess where he taught me to play as a kid and he said, “Your father tells me you want to go to law school.” I said, “I do.” And he says, “What kind of lawyer do you want to be?” And I said, “I don't really know.” And then this giant of a man — who by then was down to just 85 pounds — lifted a bony finger out at the crowd below, and he said, “Always remember, this is what happens to a country when good people don't serve it.” The next day, my father and I went home, and a week later he had passed away. And so when I was 34 and the president was going to nominate me to be a federal judge, people said, “You're crazy. You got your whole life ahead of you to be a federal judge. Make money for 20, 30 years, and then you could do it.” But for me, it was a no-brainer, because getting to serve this country and my community that had given us everything, has been the great blessing of my life, and for that I am deeply grateful to my grandfather.