We’ve forgotten a great deal of age-old wisdoms over the years, but here’s a reminder about a rule most of us grew up with: Religion and politics have no place at the dinner table. In my family, either topic might have been a welcome distraction from fighting about everything else in our lives; politics and…
My husband and I have an annual tradition. Each year, the night before Kol Nidre, we throw on some sequins and watch The Jazz Singer starring Neil Diamond. It’s a ritual as important to us as bagels & lox for break-fast. This past Erev Kol Nidre, just as I was getting ready for the movie,…
Earlier this year, the Forverts asked readers to submit anecdotes and photos of their favorite heirlooms. Heirlooms are not only a way of keeping us connected to our past; they are also a wonderful way to transmit family history to our children and grandchildren The response to our search was an enthusiastic one and 22…
In these times when families are being heartlessly separated, I cannot help but think of my maternal great-grandmother Alice (Goldman) Sherman. In 1920, she escaped with her four children, among them my grandmother Jennie, from a village they called “Yumpelah,” near Kiev. My great-aunt Dora would later tell my mother that she witnessed firing squads…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Those of us who love Yiddish are often naturally drawn to objects of a previous era. No surprise, then, that many of us have boxes of old stuff stashed away in the attic or closet, related either to our own past or to that of a relative…
In the season premiere of the PBS’ show “Finding Your Roots,” hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Larry David and Senator Bernie Sanders are told of their respective ancestries. David gained acclaim in 2015 for doing a “spot-on” impression of the senator, a performance made easier by the widely remarked-upon fact that David shares Sanders’…
Judaism hasn’t always been an important part of my life. Over the years my Jewish Identity has changed more times than the Minnesota Vikings have changed quarterbacks. There was the Hebrew School phase, the Bar Mitzvah phase (aka the glory days), the summer camp phase (not really something you phase out of), among others. Admittedly,…
The kapos at Mauthausen beat Reb Isser ben Avrum so savagely he could no longer stand straight. Sustaining other permanent injuries to his nose and left eye, he was, incredibly enough, one of the more fortunate ones. He arrived in America in the early 1950s and began life anew, remarrying and raising a second family….
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