Last week, a Sephardic member of our shul (synagogue) asked me which Middle Eastern country my family comes from. “None,” I explained, “We’re Ashkanazi.” “Really?” he exclaimed, “I was certain you were Sephardic.” After this encounter, I got to thinking: despite being completely Ashkanazi, with both sides of my family hailing from Ukraine, Russia and […]
“Shang-Chi is a breakthrough for Asian representation,” a Washington Post headline read. It caught my eye when my 12 year old son asked if we could see the movie a couple weeks ago. “Good job,” I thought. It reminded me of another headline I saw over the summer in the Hollywood Reporter, “We Are Lady Parts’ Is […]
A friend did a great kindness for my family and me, so I went to buy her flowers. White hydrangeas, pale yellow roses and bright yellow spray roses adorned my cart at Trader Joe’s as I proceeded to do my weekly shop. Somewhere along the way, I jarred the flowers while I was loading up. […]
Everything has a season, and for Jews this is the season of introspection, making amends and beginning anew. The High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are our chance to start over again. It’s not the kind of fresh start that is as if nothing has happened, because if you’ve lived a year, […]
It did not take 72 years for me to decide what I wanted to do with my life. It only took eight. That is when I graduated to reading real books. The first two that I read were Little Women and Black Beauty, two novels that opened worlds for me. I discovered that I could […]
When I was a kid, I didn’t really believe in modern anti-semitism. So I found it surprising when I was asked to speak on the topic for the You Speak, We Listen: Together We Stand event, a quarterly virtual storytelling event for women created by author Alyssa Berthiaume to empower women to tell their stories. […]
