Scribe, the Forward’s curated contributor network, is a place for showcasing personal experiences and perspective from across our Jewish communities. Here you will find a wide array of reflections on Jewish issues, life-cycle events, spirituality, culture and more.
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You say matzah — and matzo and matzuh and matzee and more
Readers respond to our editor-in-chief’s column about a Passover copy-editing conundrum
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Noah knew what it was like to shelter in place
Noah knows what it’s like to quarantine. In the most obvious and perhaps even absurd way, Noah understands what it means to be trapped inside with the entire family and all of the world’s animals (Hey, we could have it worse, right?). He knows what it feels like to gather what you need, go inside,…
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The last Jews of Dvinsk, and the memory of a forgotten civilization
The headline was first printed in the Yiddish Forverts on Oct. 9, 1944. In nine simple words, it managed to encapsulate the enormity of the Holocaust in a way few other sources do, and I believe it offers some insight into the Jewish psyche of the 21st century. It reads “10 Yidden geblibn in Dvinsk,…
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It’s okay — Anne Frank had “first world problems” too
It was a post I read on Facebook, meant to comfort those of us struggling with being stuck at home for so many weeks: “Anne Frank was forced to stay in a space that measured about 450 square feet. With seven other people. For over two years. You can get through this.” On the one…
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My four-page prize possession: an appreciation of the Novominsker Rebbe
When I went to bed on April 6, my mind was on the next day’s planned kashering of a kitchen sink and then that evening’s ritual search for chametz. When I awoke early the next morning, all of that was brutally pushed from my mind by the news of the Novominsker Rebbe’s unanticipated death. Mere…
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A Holocaust survivor’s lesson in exhaling and fighting on
Asya Seredenko was six years old when the Nazis came to her city — Kharkov, Ukraine. That’s when she started holding her breath. Her Jewish father was off on the front lines for the Soviets, and the Germans patrolling the streets knew Asya’s home belonged to a Jewish soldier. Asya’s Russian-born mother hid her in…
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How will we remember the Holocaust when there are no survivors left? Ritual.
Today, another Holocaust survivor passed away. I do not know their name – perhaps you do. Unlike their families who were torn from them before their time, some of these people are dying of natural causes, and others, sadly, of COVID-19. We should not be surprised by this. The Holocaust ended 75 years ago. The…
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Why do we still remember the Holocaust? To be inspired
A few years ago, a congregant told me of a conversation she overheard after my sermon on Yom Kippur. On their way out of synagogue, a young man turned to his girlfriend and said: “the Holocaust! Why do they always have to talk about the Holocaust?”. Since then, I have thought about this question frequently….
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A legacy of hope from a family of Holocaust survivors
The persistence of my hopefulness is a deep-rooted sense that, after Auschwitz, things can only go up.
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Auschwitz and the coronavirus: a single garment of destiny
The legacy of the Shoah has been amplified by a global pandemic that will define this century just as the Holocaust defined the last. And the message of one reinforces the other: We are all inextricably connected, like the woven threads of a tapestry. A verse from Jeremiah 18, popularized in the Yom Kippur liturgy,…
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Who gets a ventilator is the new Sophie’s Choice
Prior to the pandemic, I didn’t think of myself as “elderly.” But COVID-19 insists I am, compensating me with early morning, old-people grocery shopping. I’ve come to terms with that but my husband and I, both in our 70s, had been enjoying life before all this tragedy, so I’ve been stewing over being seen as…
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Finding inner freedom in quarantine
As Pesach, the time of our freedom, approached, I felt like our liberty was fading away. It feels like forever ago, but it’s been less than a month since most of us were free to go where we pleased and participate in gatherings of any size and kind. Since then, many of our liberties have…
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