I always sang for my father
One of the last things on my mind was how I would say Kaddish for my father, but the more I learned about it, the more meaningful it felt.
When A Synagogue Was Sold To A Church — The Community Held A Funeral
The synagogue was sold to a church. The community decided to have a funeral for its sanctuary.
HBO’s ‘Bright Lights’ Documentary Brings Comfort to Mourning Fan of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds
Family deficiencies and the need to perform are equal threads in this mother-daughter narrative.
A Mother’s Day Note to Carrie Fisher
Marla Brown Fogelman invites her distant cousin Carrie Fisher out to a Jewish Mother’s Day brunch, ideally for blintzes at the restaurant owned by Steven Spielberg’s mom.
How Veterans Stories Transformed My Son
When Marla Brown Fogelman hired her son to transcribe her interviews with Jewish World War II veterans, she never expected the job to transform the relationship between them.
Why Couldn’t My Two Bubbies Love Each Other?
What happens when your two grandmothers live next door to each other and don’t get along? Marla Brown Fogelman can finally explain, now that she is a bubbe.
Learning to Love Christmas, Eggnog and All
Growing up in ‘less-than-Jewy’ Delaware, Marla Fogelman dreaded Christmas. Only as she became more observant did she begin to appreciate the holiday, eggnog and all.
Let's Do Coffee, Cousin Carrie
Author Marla Brown Fogelman has never met Carrie Fisher, who is her distant relative. Still, she has followed Fisher’s rollercoaster life, and is still rooting for her ‘cousin Carrie.’
Sundays With 'Jack,' Bernie, Harvey and More
In advance of Memorial Day, a pacifist baby boomer discusses her work interviewing American Jewish veterans of World War II.
My Grandmother's Obsession Becomes My Own
It was because of my late grandmother and her 40-year obsession with a book called “The Prophet of San Nicandro” that I was sitting at Columbia University’s Café 212, in the middle of a bone-chilling December afternoon, having coffee with professor John Davis.