I watch her in awe – the way a sports fan might watch a great athlete – but the thing that this woman has mastered is herself. Every time I’ve been a guest in this friend’s home over the last fifteen years, I am blown away by what a person looks like when she truly […]

I’m not the best faster, which means I’m usually not the best at Yom Kippur prayers. But I did notice two things this Yom Kippur, once while I was praying and the other time while I was not praying. In Avinu Malkeinu, the customary prayer we say over and over again during the High Holidays, […]

Seinfeld has a joke that more people are afraid of public speaking than death. That means that more people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. Not me. I was a natural born performer. Was it in my genes? Did my middle-child birth order push me to be louder in order to […]

I’m pretty sure that there’s a place in hell where the really bad people are trapped in a shoe store with hordes of short people who whine “Mommy” at them – forever.  There is a certain dread that fills my being at the end of every summer as we begin our back to school shopping. The […]

“I’m really glad I’m a part of this.” In Adam Sandler’s new Netflix film, You’re So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah, for me the line that summed up the essence of the film, was when protagonist Stacy Friedman declared at the end, “I’m really glad I’m a part of this.” What is the “this?” When […]

Impact, not intent, is what matters in DEIA spaces. Yet with the recent release of Netflix’s Maestro trailer, featuring gentile actor Bradley Cooper donning a prosthetic nose even larger than Jewish composer Leonard Bernstein’s actual nose, many people are downplaying the harm, because it lacked antisemitic intent. Bernstein’s children released a statement, supporting the schnoz. […]