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. […]
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. […]
It’s time to talk about how Jews portray themselves on television. With the release of “My Unorthodox Life,” once again Jewish bloggers and writers are up in arms – and rightfully so – about how Jews, specifically Orthodox Jews, are made into over-stereotyped caricatures of what society expects them to be. We can blame anti-Semitism […]
