Holocaust

Lou was born a Jew during a period of extermination, hidden by a resourceful mother, taught Polish by a non-Jewish Polish family, taught German by nuns in a convent, recovered from TB, and taught Yiddish and right from wrong by his parents in a German DP camp. Read More

Memoir

She was so beautiful—like a poem silenced and given no name.  She was just what the world fears most—a woman put together, need unmet, yet cleverly resolved and blameless.  A Jewish woman who’d survived numerous rewrites and script changes. Read More

Politics

I was never comfortable with the identity of victim associated with being Jewish. Yes, we were victimized in the past. But today, the wholesale destruction of all of Gaza by Israel shifts the narrative. Now we are seen, globally, as victimizers. Read More

Memoir

Not long after, I trained as a Laughter Yoga leader. I became an expert extolling laughter’s virtue to anyone who’d listen. That was until a distinctly un-funny time in my life—a bowel cancer diagnosis at age forty-two. Despite there being nothing humorous about cancer, I knew deep within that laughter was inextricably bound to my experience. The moment had arrived to practice what I preached. I just needed time (and a couple of major operations) to connect the dots. Read More

Jewish

…when I’m in trouble, when the airplane unexpectedly coughs or rolls or dips, I am the first to recite the “shema” silently, urgently: “Hear O’ Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is One.” Read More

Memoir
I was standing in a wide-open space all alone and there was a feeling of serenity with almost nobody else around. The birds were chirping and there was a big old, beautiful tree in front of me. Speaking to myself felt very strange in the first few minutes and I wondered if this is what… Read More
Community
It’s probably a true-ism that we become more of who we are in a crisis. So I am catching up with friends from near and far and conversations take as long as they should. I am taking gloriously unhurried walks. I am enjoying reading history –Simon Schama’s The Story of the Jews – Finding the… Read More