Rock star Gene Simmons of KISS fame was reduced to uncontrollable tears when he visited the grave of his estranged father during a recent visit to his native Israel, where his emotions expressed the unbreakable bond with Israel and the ties between father and son.
The following video is available courtesy of Radaronline.com
His father left him and his mother, a Holocaust survivor, when he was a child. Simmons grew up in New York, studying in yeshiva for a while before abandoning tradition and gradually working his way up the entertainment ladder.
Simmons became visibly shaky as he entered the cemetery, where he put a kippa on is head as he approached the grave. After breaking down in tears, he said, “I am so stupid. Why didn’t I go to see him before he died?
He later said in an interview, “I was arrogant. I wanted to prove I didn’t need him. I never saw him again until I stood over his grave.”
Simon’s painful memories of a child overcame him at the graveside visit, and he muttered amid tears, “I am a good father. You would be proud.”
In the video of Simmon’s visit to the cemetery, he read a letter his father left behind. The elder Simmons said that World War II, wars in Israel and personal “tragedies” prevented him from progressing economically despite his education. “I am going to finish my life as a nobody, as a nothing,” he wrote in the letter.
“The only thing I can be proud of is my children. They are all beautiful and talented. I am very happy that you are happy.”
In a posted on Israel National News last month, Simmons expressed his firm support for Israel, and anger at U.S. President Barack Obama’s demands that the Jewish state surrender land to the Palestinian Authority.
