(JTA) — On the surface, the tour looked much like a standard Birthright Israel trip: Participants celebrated Shabbat in Jerusalem’s Old City, swam in the Dead Sea and ascended the ancient mountain fortress at Masada. The trip was mostly free and organizers were prepared with follow-up programming after the participants returned home. But the nearly…
The author (left) and her son in the Dead Sea, Israel. / Copyright Avital Norman Nathman There’s a certain sense of overwhelming fatigue that comes from spending hours traipsing along the streets of Tel Aviv under the hot summer sun. Even my mother, who accompanied my almost 8-year-old son and me on this outing and…
It was not quite 6 a.m. on July 13, 1981, when the phone rang in Rochel Vail’s upstate summer bungalow. Her friend’s frantic husband was on the line. His wife was in labor, and his car had broken down. Would Vail drive them the three hours to the hospital in New York City? “Sure!” she…
Thinkstock The queries “What is the right age to talk with your children about puberty?” and “How to prevent precocious puberty” — thanks to a friend who scared the living daylights out of me recently — have filled my Google search history of the past few weeks. You see, my daughter, who is seven, was…
Thinkstock Should couples sign a pre-pregnancy contract, outlining how caring for the infant will be equally divided between the two parties involved? Slate?s Rebecca Onion thinks so. Concerned about the potential negative effects procreation might have her on her life and her relationship with her husband, Onion wonders whether a ?legally binding document, outlining expectations…
Eman Mohammed with her daughters, Lateen and Talia As a photojournalist, stepping into war isn’t a dilemma for me. It is my instinct to grab my cameras and run out to document the man-made misery, the horrors of war, each and every time hoping humanity will get the lesson. But nothing prepared me to understand…
Deborah Meghnagi Bailey and her family Here’s a scene from my life last week: It’s 9:30 pm. I’m lying on my bed, fully dressed, talking to my husband, who is ready for bed. We weren’t supposed to be here, tonight. We were supposed to be in the Galilee, in a beautiful cabin with its own…
Mothers of the slain Israeli teenagers // Getty Images In moments like this the most powerful voices, the ones most likely to incite empathy and spark reconciliation, are not those of politicians, or military leaders or long-time activists. They are the ones of parents, most often those who have lost their children, who remind us,…
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