Ode to Shtisel and Shakespeare
“A Jew with a dog? It’s either not a Jew or it’s not a dog.” -Yiddish Proverb I heard these words uttered on the Israeli TV show Shtisel, but they hit home, just as if they had been uttered in my very...
View ArticleMy mother’s minks: Her pelts, my punishment
My mother was pro-mink. She believed fur symbolized luxury, style, wealth, and to the manor born. Not me. I was decidedly anti-fur. I grew up in a cloth coat, pea jacket egalitarian world. My mother...
View ArticleAdulting — It’s Not for the Tender-hearted
As a teenager, I saw the Barbra Streisand movie The Way We Were and cried. As the theater lights went up, my mother looked at my tear-streaked face and commented dryly, “You really don’t know true...
View ArticleMy mish-mosh mixed marriage
Ours is a mixed marriage, the type rabbis and many mamas decry. We are admittedly not two of a kind. He is the son of devout Catholics. I am the daughter of ultra-Reform Jews, who mostly remember...
View ArticleTevye’s Milk Cart. No De-Cluttering Necessary
What a difference three generations make. Our grandparents came to America with nothing. Now our generation owns so much, we are possession obsessed. We contemplate downsizing, but cannot figure out...
View ArticleInstead of Sitting Shiva, Words of Remembrance
My brother died recently after 17 years of cancer. He didn’t want a religious service or memorial ceremony. He lived in a tiny town, a bit far away, a bit difficult to get to. I hadn’t seen him in...
View ArticleA Jew at 21: Finding Hashem in the USSR
I was more New Yorker than Jew. More Las Vegan than landsman. More my father’s daughter than one of the Chosen People. At least that’s what I thought until I studied in the former Soviet Union when I...
View ArticlePandemic, Pneumonia, Protests, Prayers, Healing
Always one to be different, I got pneumonia amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Coughing, high fevers, weak, felt like I was going to die, swabbed (twice!) (yuck) for coronavirus, but lucky me, pneumonia, not...
View ArticleCOVID-19 and Bitter Times: A Test of Resiliency
Jews are a resilient people. We’ve had no choice, having lived through exile, persecution, pogroms, and Holocaust — millennia of unrelenting anti-Semitism. And that resiliency, that ability to...
View ArticleGratitude: A Way to Find Comfort Amid Pain
It’s summer, usually a time for merriment, but not this year. This summer, to paraphrase Shakespeare, is the season of our discontent — the long, unrelenting season of COVID-19. Yet, soon, amid...
View ArticleOverpacking for the Evacuation Alert: Mementos and Memories
It is wildfire season in California, that annual time of destruction and dread, now made more fearsome as people also worry about pandemic and politics. In late August, one evening, we received an...
View ArticleMy good name is under attack. Enough with the mean Karen meme
After naming three boys for deceased relatives, my mother was ready to rebel. Finally, having gotten her wish for a daughter (me), she refused to be tradition-bound in selecting my name. So, instead of...
View ArticleThe Gardener Quit. Why am I Crying?
The gardener quit. He’s moving to Hawaii. Can’t take the wildfires and horrible Northern California air anymore. It’s not the first time he’s quit. He recently came back to work after two years away in...
View ArticleReturn to Sender. Address KNOWN
“Return to Sender,” a 1962 hit song for Elvis Presley, might as well be my theme song these days. Not only am I sitting around, sheltering in place waiting for that miracle COVID-19 vaccine, I’m also...
View ArticleNew Year’s Times Two. Resolutions Times Two Too
Jews are lucky. We get two New Year’s observances. And two chances to make New Year’s resolutions. Unfortunately, we also get two chances to break those vows. But all in all, it’s a pretty good deal,...
View ArticleBuying Yahrzeit candles in bulk
Here in California, we’ve lived under shelter-in-place orders for so long, I’ve practically forgotten what not sheltering-in-place feels like! I’ve covered my “good” clothes with tissue paper, so they...
View ArticleAn unexpected email brings joy. I’ve got mishpucha
It’s been a tough couple of months. Politics and pandemic have taken their toll on me. Like many people, I have lost loved ones this year. And almost a year of sheltering-at-home has made me feel that...
View ArticleAm I a Galatz from Galați? Part 2
Some months back in this space I asked, “Am I a Galatz from Galați?” Well, since then, I’ve been taken on an unexpected joyride of genealogical learning and been thrilled by the revelations I’ve...
View ArticleMy bagel addiction. A costly, weighty, won’t-have-it-any-other way problem
Sitting out the pandemic, I’ve developed a serious addiction. It’s surprising it’s taken so long. After all, I’m a native New Yorker, the daughter of native New Yorkers, the granddaughter of Eastern...
View ArticleLessons learned while sheltering-in-place
It’s been a hard year in oh, so many ways. Now, thankfully, in most parts of the US, we’re starting to emerge from the fear and isolation of sheltering-in-place. And as we do, I for one, am pausing to...
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