Monday, December 30, 2013

Judy & Tamir “Jewish Jordan” Goodman

By Jillian Scheinfeld for Raising Kvell

Since retiring from playing professional basketball in 2009, Tamir Goodman, known as the “Jewish Jordan,” has been steadily on the go. Tamir and his wife, Judy, have four kids, founded the non-profit Coolanu Israel, and co-wrote The Jewish Jordan’s Triple Threat together. Individually, Tamir created Sport Strings Tzitzit and partners in the Omri Casspi Basketball Camps, and Judy works for various companies–as well as writes, runs, and cooks.

I got to chat with the couple about playing sports with their kids, writing a book together, and their day-to-day life as parents.


Tamir, what do you miss most about playing professionally?
Goodman FamilyI was fortunate to live out my dream of playing Division I college and professional basketball without playing on Shabbat. I played until injuries prevented me from physically being able to compete anymore. I love the game and I definitely miss playing it, but I never played just for the love of the game; I always played for the larger purpose of representing Israel and Judaism on the court.

Fortunately, I am able to continue this mission even after my playing days have ended through my Coolanu Israel basketball camps, clinics, development of my basketball products like sport Strings Tzitzit and Zone190, and my recently published book, The Jewish Jordan’s Triple Threat.

Do you ball with your kids? What sports are they into?

As a coach (Tamir) and soon-to-be certified personal trainer (Judy), we both recognize how important it is for kids to be active. With this in mind, we play lots of different sports–not just basketball. Some days we ride bikes, or play catch, or go to the playground. We even play sport games in the house when the weather is too cold to go outside.

Through our family routines, we try to expose our kids to different sports and encourage them to have fun being active, because if they enjoy what they are doing then it is more likely to become a life-long habit. In addition to helping kids stay healthy and happy, sports impart so many important values. Resilience, confidence, respect for others, teamwork, commitment, perseverance, and the value of a strong work ethic are all lessons that kids learn while running up and down the court or playing the field.

Continue reading.



Monday, December 23, 2013

The Only Pregnant Jew in Rural Maine

By Courtney Naliboff for Raising Kvell

Rural MaineI was raised by my secular, humanist Jewish family in the woods of central Maine. We were surrounded by lakes and maples, heard loons at night and occasionally, a moose and her calf wandered into our backyard, much to the consternation of our golden retriever. There were no sidewalks in our town, no traffic lights. My sisters and I played Laura Ingalls Wilder in the backyard until dark. It was isolated and idyllic.

That same isolation became disruptive once we entered the small public elementary school in the next town. We were raised to be proud and outspoken about our heritage, to speak up when teachers talked about Hanukkah in the context of “Christmas Around the World,” to bring in our brass menorahs and wooden dreidels and explain our customs to our classmates.

You may already know how this story goes. Sixth grade boys drew swastikas on their notebooks and showed them to me. “Do you know what this means?” they asked, feigning innocence. My sister’s classroom teacher referred to Judaism as a branch of Christianity, and her classmates called her a “stupid Jew” when she corrected her. A small blonde girl in my class kicked me as I walked up the stairs to the bus, hissing “Jew” in my ear as I fell. In middle school, well-meaning friends urged me to become a Jew for Jesus, to avoid my inevitable damnation. Our bus route took us past hand-painted signs nailed to a grove of trees that read “Jews = Sinners” and “Sinners Damned to Hell.”

I fled, first for Providence and then for Boston, planning a career on stage or in jazz clubs. I attended Yom Kippur services for the first time my freshman year at Brown, and marveled at how I had gone from sore thumb to getting lost in a crowd of other Jewish young adults. I was finally able to visit the delis I had only read about, join a klezmer band, enjoy a seder with my friends. I reveled in the normalcy of it all.

Continue reading.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Everyone Wants to Go to Commie Camp

 Commie CampIn the summer of 2012 conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh labeled Camp Kinderland, "extremist," pointed to its "Communist roots," and accused it of indoctrinating children. Comedian Katie Halper, a Kinderland alum, decided there was just one way to get to the bottom of the allegations: go back to camp.

For one summer Halper followed four nine-year-olds as they experienced Camp Kinderland. They muddle through Yiddish lessons, compete in the World Peace Olympics (Kinderland's answer to color war), stage a protest against police brutality, and explore an in-camp exhibit on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the resulting documentary, Commie Camp, Halper explores the history of Kinderland, which was founded in 1923 by Jewish activists as a refuge for their children from the tenements of NYC, her family's very personal connection to the camp, and the way that the camp inspires social justice activism in its campers and alumni.

Not everyone is a "camp person" but this hilarious and educational movie appeals to even the decidedly non-rustic among us.

- Tamar Fox for Jewniverse

Monday, December 9, 2013

Interview with Interesting Jews: Ido Kedar, 17-Year-Old Author of “Ido in Autismland”

By Tracy Kedar for Kveller


My 17-year-old son, Ido, is on a mission to change the world for people with severe autism. He is a tireless advocate, blogger, frequent presenter at universities and autism conferences, and the author of a book about autism which has even been assigned in graduate level university classes.

IdoAs Ido writes in the introduction to his blog, “I am an autistic guy with a message. I spent the first half of my life completely trapped in silence. The second, on becoming a free soul. I had to fight to get an education. Now I am a regular education student. I communicate by typing on an iPad or a letter board. My book, Ido in Autismland: Climbing Out of Autism’s Silent Prison, is an autism diary, telling the story of my symptoms, education, and journey into communication. I hope to help other autistic people find a way out of their silence too.”

Ido seeks to educate the professionals in the autism field to understand severe, nonverbal autism better and to provide children with a richer, more appropriate education and a true means to communication. He has become a source of hope for parents of children with autism and for people with autism as well. As a family, it has been a remarkable journey of triumph over challenges, even as Ido works daily to face new goals and struggles.

Kveller asked that I interview Ido about his life living with autism. His answers were all typed letter by letter on a keyboard.

What is severe autism?

Autism is a neurological condition that is called a spectrum disorder. I have severe autism which means I can’t speak and I have really challenging motor control problems. It doesn’t mean I have cognitive delay, or no empathy, or no interest in people, but these are common beliefs. The term “spectrum disorder” may be confusing because I think we are actually looking at different neurological conditions, not degrees of the same condition. After all, colds and AIDS are both viruses but no one refers to a Virus Spectrum Disorder.

Continue reading.



Monday, December 2, 2013

News Roundup: Kids Today Expect Everything On Demand

By Jillian Scheinfeld for Kveller

TVKidAll the parenting news you probably didn’t have time to read.

- The Internet, Netflix, fast food, and other forms of “instant gratification” are changing the way today’s kids view time and demands. This New York Times piece sheds light on the competitive nature of television networks and its effect on today’s “on demand” children. (NY Times)

- One in three women has an abortion by the age of 45, but how many people actually talk about it? New York Magazine features 26 women with 26 different experiences. (NY Mag)

- A recent study from the University of Pittsburg shows that the negative impact of “harsh verbal discipline” (even occasionally) on adolescents is comparable to the effects of physical discipline. (NY Times)

- When Larry’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, the family received unending amounts of food and comfort from family and friends. A decade later, their daughter Maggie was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and received no such care packages. (Slate)

 

Monday, November 25, 2013

Hanukkah Book Set To Become New Holiday Tradition

by Dan Veaner for the Lansing Star

Gift GolemWhen you think of Kickstarter campaigns you think of nifty high-tech gadgets attracting techie-boys who love their toys to help finance the next great thing. But two Lansing women are using it to launch something much gentler: a Hanukkah story and game called 'The Gelt Giving Golem'. The product will include a boxed illustrated book and a plush toy golem used to play a game over the eight days of Hanukkah.

"It's the story of a character that I created called the 'Hanukkah Golem', who gives a piece of gelt to little children each night of Hanukkah when he witnesses good behavior the day before," says author Carolyn Greenwald. "The purpose of the story is to allow Jewish children to participate in a tradition that's been very popular on Christmas, where there is an elf watching children's' behavior every day and then reporting back to Santa Claus."

Greenwald's idea is that parents will read the book as well as play the game with their children every year as they grow through ages two through nine. She and illustrator Suzy Hill are working with a plush toy manufacturer to produce a ten inch tall golem based on Hill's design that will come with the book. It will have velcro hands and feet so parents can pose him in varios positions each night where their kids will find him in the morning. Each day they find the golem, he has a piece of gelt for them -- if they were good the previous day.

In Jewish lore a golem is a live person made of clay who is bound to carry out the wishes of the person who made it and gave it life. Golems are typically strong and used for brute-force tasks, mindlessly following their master's wishes. Hanukkah gelt is also a Jewish tradition where a coin is given as a present to mark the eight day holiday. Today chocolate coins are particularly popular in Jewish homes. Unlike Christmas, Hanukkah is a minor holiday, generally considered by Jews to be a children's holiday. But very much like Christmas the holiday includes a rich heritage of songs, games, lore and tradition for kids.

"We don't have an elf in Judaism," Greenwald says. "We don't have magical creatures. But there is a strong tradition of the Golem being a Hanukkah character. there are a bunch of children's books about a golem and Hanukkah. In the oldest story the Prague Golem was created on the first night of Hanukkah. Our golem is a little different because he does have a mind. He acts on his own. So we took the golem and made him into something that would work for this book."

That presented a challenge for Hill. It was up to her to take a traditionally tough and colorless character and transform him into someone lovable, approachable, kind and friendly. She is currently working on creating the illustrations in watercolor and pen and ink for the 32 page story book.

Continue reading.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Ask A Rabbi: Are We Supposed to Give Presents on Every Night of Hanukkah?

By Rabbi Alison Adler, the rabbi at Temple B’nai Abraham, a Conservative synagogue in Beverly.

What are the rules on how we are supposed to give presents on Hanukkah? Every night or only on the eighth? Is this a Jewish tradition? If so, what’s Jewish about it?

When my mother was a kid, they celebrated Hanukkah the old-fashioned way: After lighting the candles, mom’s parents would give her some chocolate gelt, a dreidel and maybe a coin. And that was it. But in raising her own children, mom used to say—jokingly, I think—that we kids were entitled to one major Hanukkah gift each year…on Christmas Day!Gifts

Mom couldn’t stand the idea that all of our non-Jewish friends were about to receive magnificent windfalls of toys, while we got nothing. Indeed, she reasoned, it would be hard to imagine a better way to make a small child resentful of his or her Jewishness.

Therein lies the short answer to your question: The “tradition” of giving presents during Hanukkah was provoked by the long shadow that Christmas casts over Jewish homes. And nowhere is this shadow longer and darker than in America, where holiday gift-giving is a national obsession. Historians suggest that the consumerist side of the holiday began to develop in the mid-19th century, and it’s possible that Hanukkah gift-giving began about the same time.

Of course, like all things Jewish, the long answer is not so simple. For the tradition of giving gelt, or money, is apparently an older practice whose origins are unclear. An excellent article by Natasha Rosenstock on MyJewishLearning.com cites scholar Eliezer Segal, who has turned up sources mentioning that European Torah students used to give gelt to their teachers. Segal suggests that this practice was perhaps inspired by semantic and etymological connections between the Hebrew word “Hanukkah” (dedication) and the Hebrew word chinnukh (education).

 Continue reading.


Monday, November 11, 2013

Eight Giving Rituals for Your Family: Making the Most of Thanksgivukkah

by Stefanie Zelkind for eJewishPhilanthropy

thanksgivukkah-posterFrom menurkeys to sweet potato latke recipes, there are many creative ways to celebrate this year’s unique overlap of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving. In an effort to move beyond the kitsch, I would like to offer some additional ideas for blending the Hanukkah tradition of giving with the Thanksgiving ideal of gratitude. Here are eight suggestions (sorry, I couldn’t resist) of how to use Thanksgivukkah as a launch pad for learning, giving, and values-based family activities.

During Thanksgiving dinner, take a “gratitude break.” Ask everyone to take a moment to think about the best gift they have ever received (Was it a tangible gift? Was it an experience? What is a key lesson learned? Who gave it to you? What made it so special?) as well as the best gift they’ve ever given (To whom? Why did you give it?) Go around the table and share. You may just learn that your daughter’s favorite gift was that quiet morning you spent snuggling together on the couch, and not the iPod Touch you got her last Hanukkah.

Make the tzedakah box the centerpiece on the table, and invite guests to give – a quarter, a dollar, or more – to a collective tzedakah pool. Over dessert, ask each guest to suggest an organization or cause to support and give a 60-second pitch explaining why it’s important. Then, talk about the different issues raised, hold a straw vote, and come to a shared decision about which organization(s) you’ll support. Don’t focus on the amount of money (although you may be surprised at how generous people are); it’s about the discussion and the feeling of giving together as a family. Thanks to my own family for creating and modeling this Thanksgiving tradition.

Dedicate each night of Hanukkah to an organization that inspires you. After you light candles, share a bit about the organization’s work with your family. Visit the website together, read a brochure, describe an experience you had, then make a donation to support their efforts.

Continue reading.


Monday, November 4, 2013

What To Say To The Parent Of A Child With A Disability

Gabrielle Kaplan-Meyer for The Jewish Week


What to Say[Previously in The Jewish Week], I discussed three surefire ways to shut down a conversation with the parent of a child who has a disability. Of course, talking about disability can be one of the trickiest, most awkward-moment-producing topics around. Differences raise fear and anxiety for all of us and that limits the chances for meaningful dialogue. But I hope that with increased disability awareness education, like my post of yesterday and this one, we can create more productive conversations. Try any one or all of these three topics!

Tell me about how this experience has changed you/transformed your spirituality/view of the world:

Most of the parents I’ve meet who are raising a child with special needs have incredible stories to tell. Our perspectives on humanity, on caring for the most vulnerable, have opened us to deep understandings and maybe even some wisdom. For the last five years, I have met monthly with a spiritual direction group made up of other parents who have a child with some kind of difference. We sit together and listen to each other’s stories and share about the moments of struggle, joy and feeling God’s presence with us that have happened over the last month. Asking to hear about my story and listening deeply would be an incredible gift to me.

Tell me about what supports you might need and how I could help.

Continue reading.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Chanukah and Thanksgiving mashup to create 'Thanksgivukkah'

Ben Popken NBC News

thanksgivukkah-at-kutchersIn a once-in-a-lifetime convergence of calendars, Chanukah and Thanksgiving fall on the same day this year. But rather than choose between which holiday to celebrate, some families are saying "more please" to both. That means sweet potato latkes and challah-stuffed turkey is getting served up beside a cornucopia overflowing with chocolate gelt, lit by the flickering of a turkey-shaped menorah.

Happy "Thanksgivukkah!"

Because the Jewish and Gregorian calendars aren't calculated the same way, Chanukah shows up at different times each year. Usually the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights happens in December, but this year, it falls on Turkey Day. The convergence has only happened once before, in 1888, and won't be seen again until 2070 and again in 2165, according to calculations by Jonathan Mizrahi, a quantum physicist at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. After that, the two holidays aren't set to overlap until 76,695.

So if you ever wondered what turkey would taste like if it had a little more "schmaltz" — rendered chicken fat, a staple of traditional Jewish cuisine — this is the year.

Trish Meyers, a 41-year old stay-at-home mom in Brandon, Fla., already has in mind to put together eight turkey-shaped tapers in her house to create a crossover menorah. She was brought up Christian and her husband is Jewish. Normally the Meyers and their two daughters, 12 and 19, observe Chanukah at home, and then visit family for Thanksgiving. This year, they're hosting both for all 20 guests. It will be the first time Trish's side of the family has experienced a Chanukah celebration.

Besides dreidel spinning and songs, bourbon sweet potato kugel, cranberry brisket sliders and challah-stuffed turkey are on order, combining cuisines from both menus into single dishes.

Continue reading.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Boundaries Blur Between Jews and Christians in Shocking Ways

Christmas Trees Common — Even Belief in Jesus as 'Messiah'


By Josh Nathan-Kazis for the Forwards

Boundaries BlurAre you Jewish or Christian? Increasingly, Americans seem to be checking both boxes, according to the 2013 Pew Research Center Survey of U.S. Jews.

It’s not just that a lot of Jews have Christmas trees, though 32% say they do; it’s that 34% of Jews said that they think being Jewish is compatible with believing that Jesus is the Messiah, a belief that’s theologically anathema to traditional Judaism.
Continue reading
Meanwhile, Pew estimates that there are 1.2 million non-Jewish Americans who identify as sort-of-Jewish, even though they are not Jewish by religion and have no Jewish family background.

Findings like these in the new Pew survey point to the emergence of a hazy category between Judaism and Christianity that’s something between a new syncretic religion and a theological muddle.

“It points to the blurring boundaries between Jews and non-Jews,” said Sara Bunin Benor, a professor at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion who acted as an adviser to the Pew study. “More people than in the past believe that you can be both Jewish and Christian.”

Much of that blurring, according to Benor, is due to intermarriage. The Pew survey found that rates of intermarriage have risen steadily since the 1970s, with 58% of Jews who married between 2005 and 2013 marrying a non-Jew.

Continue reading.





Monday, October 14, 2013

A Biblical Family Tree

By Tamar Fox for Jewniverse

Biblical Family TreeFrom classics like One Hundred Years of Solitude to recent hits like Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell series, complicated tales often come with charts or maps at the front to help you keep track of the characters and their movements.

If novels can do this, why not the the original complicated tale? That is, the Bible. If you’ve ever found yourself bogged down in the seemingly endless begats of Genesis, an English-Canadian man named Luke Martin has got you covered with this comprehensive Biblical family tree. Beginning with Adam and going all the way through Moses, the chart clearly lays out the often complex families we read about in the first two books of the Torah.

Spending some time with the family tree is a great way to remind yourself about some of the often overlooked corners of the family. For instance, did you remember that after Sarah died Abraham went on to have 6 other children with Keturah? Or that Esau had a grandson named Amalek (the same name given to a nation bent on annihilating the Israelites)?

We can’t wait to print this one out and paste it into our Bible.

Monday, October 7, 2013

At His Untraditional Bar Mitzvah, A Son With Autism Leads The Congregation

by Rabbi Rebecca Schorr for The Jewish Week

Autistic Bar MitzvahA piece of my soul died when we decided that Ben’s autism would necessitate a reexamination of a conventional Bar Mitzvah service. Having guided so many young people through their studies towards becoming Bar or Bat Mitzvah, I yearned to have the unique privilege of preparing my own son, my firstborn, the way my father, also a rabbi, had long ago prepared me.

Though Ben’s desire to mark this occasion by participating in our local Walk Now for Autism Speaks was one which we fully embraced, I mourned the demise of a fantasy: standing beside my child as he took his place in the chain of our family’s tradition, led his congregation in prayer, chanted from the Torah and delivered a d’var Torah, or commentary, upon reaching the age of commandments.

Martin Buber, one of the preeminent Jewish theologians of the last century, divides the human experience into two categories: I-It, in which we hold something back from another person, I-Thou, in which we share ourselves totally. He posits that our lives are enhanced and defined by our relationships – with our goal of being in relationship with God as the Ultimate Thou. Between a parent and child, I-Thou moments occur more frequently as the child matures. But parents of a child on the autism spectrum fear they might never come.

Yet as we moved through the weekend, I was taken aback by the abundance of I-Thou moments. At several points, I remember thinking to myself that I was experiencing such abject holiness and perfection that I had to emblaze it on my very soul.

 Continue reading.

Monday, September 30, 2013

The Hebrew School Dropouts Want Back In

 By Allison Andrews for Kveller

Last month, at the very last minute, I finally sent off my children’s application to our synagogue’s Hebrew school. For the second time.

Hebrew School DropoutThree years ago when it was time to sign up our oldest daughter for Hebrew school, I eagerly filled out the paperwork. My husband and I love our funky, spirited, and opinionated Reconstructionist synagogue, and I thought I found a community that would provide a Jewish connection and community for the entire family. Let the Jewish learning begin! They were starting a new family-

based, Shabbat-based Hebrew school program. We would be in on the ground floor, as they say, and start my daughter off on an amazing journey of Jewish learning.

But it did not quite work out that way.

My daughter is super bright and creative but she is also severely dyslexic and struggles with a complicated set of learning, social, and sensory issues.

It turns out the community building family time at that start of the Hebrew school Shabbat learning program overwhelmed my daughter.

It turns out that it was too loud and there were too many activities going on at once. There were too many transitions and there was too much noise.

It turns out that what works for most kids doesn’t work for my daughter.

By first grade she dreaded going to synagogue. She was begging us not to take her to class on Saturdays. She was struggling at regular school and we were working hard to sort out all of her learning issues.

Continue reading.


 

Monday, September 23, 2013

Tkhines--Little Known Jewish Prayers, Written By and For Women

By Renee Septimus for Kveller
Giving birth was the most spiritual experience I ever had.

TkhinesIt was as if my body, mind and soul–my very being–was on high alert. I felt a new closeness to the man with whom I had fallen in love years before and who was now the father of my child. I felt an intense identification with the Creator God, to whom I prayed each day, and who was our partner in the creation of the new life I had just pushed from my body.

But as a religious Jewish woman, I was disappointed that my tradition provided no special prayer or ritual to mark my rite of passage from “woman” to “mother,” even as I softly said the generic Shehechiyanu blessing (“…who has kept us alive, sustained us and brought us to this time.”)

There were many times that I felt shortchanged as a woman marking life cycle events or more mundane experiences that I felt were, in some way, sacred. There was no way to connect them Jewishly to the God I felt beside me as I lived my life.
Some years after my youngest child was born, I found a newly published book which introduced me to tkhines, prayers written by and for women, dating to the 16th century and originally written in Yiddish, the vernacular of the shtetls of Ashkenazic Jews. Although the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community had never “lost” them, tkhines were rediscovered by the larger Jewish community as a result of feminist Jewish scholarship which began to take off in the 1970s. Since my serendipitous discovery 20 years ago, I have taken a spiritual journey reading, collecting, writing, and teaching about these beautiful prayers which resonate so strongly with me, and with every woman I know who reads them.

Tkhines mark the important events in a woman’s life with prayer, connecting the experience to an immediate God, an approachable God, a God to whom one can pray in gratitude, hope or despair. They consecrate a moment, elevate the “mundane” to the holy.

 Continue reading.

Monday, September 16, 2013

What will you do differently this year?

Kveller asked its readers this very question.  Here's what they had to say.  What about you?

AdinaI’ve been thinking about this for weeks. I almost decided I couldn’t write a resolution for this Rosh Hashanah because there are too many things I want to do differently, too much I want to change. I wasn’t sure how to write something short and sweet and meaningful when what I need is a gansa megillah to explain all the ways in which I hope 5774 is so, so different from my 5773.

Then this picture was taken on a family vacation last week, and I decided to let it dictate my resolution and remind me of what matters: more laughing, more love, more wine.


AlexisI’ve got big plans for 5774: read a book, go to yoga, see a movie with my husband, give more money to tzedakah, and WEAN my little girl. Also, maybe get pregnant.




TzipporaThis year I’ve decided to like myself. I just turned 33 and it occurred to me that I have spent most of those 33 years trying to become something, change something, aspire to something, and it has left me with a constant feeling of never being happy with who I am. So this year I’ve decided to find the things I *do* like about myself and to honor them. To find a way to be in the moment with myself.

Read more from Kveller

Monday, September 9, 2013

Three Years of Trying & Still No Baby

By Sharon McKellar for Raising Kvell

InfertilityThat I will be a mom someday has always been a given, and like all other things in my life, I have always known that if I plan and try, I will achieve my goals. This is what my own mom taught me. She is the quintessential mother, who gave up a career to raise us not because she was supposed to, but because it was what made her the happiest.

When my husband and I first talked about building a life together, we decided on an order for things. First, we would travel. Then, we would have babies. At 32 we were married, at 33 we traveled the world for a year, and at 34 we returned to have babies. As a librarian, I am an information seeker, so we did it correctly, right from the start. With the fanciest ovulation monitor, and the will of two people who are used to getting their way, we wasted no time. At the six-month no-success meeting with my doctor she told us that this is the meeting where she just makes sure people are doing it right. You two, she told us, are doing it right.

Well, here we are, three years later, and a year into assisted reproductive technology (IUI and IVF) still doing it right, and still child-free. We have watched friends and family get pregnant, have children, have first birthday parties and have second children, while still we wait, feeling like our life is passing us by.

The word “infertility” has a lot of baggage. Getting pregnant and having a child is meant to be a joyful and uncomplicated part of life. I remember in Torah School learning about the life cycle, and while I can now see a multitude of issues that might come with teaching life in such a simplified way, the one I fixate on is this one: starting a family. Starting a family. When it goes wrong, it can feel like you have failed at being a woman, a wife, a daughter, a sister.

Continue reading.


Monday, September 2, 2013

Rosh Hashanah Resolutions: My Cancer New Year

By Kveller

 ResolutionsWhen we asked our readers to send in their Rosh Hashanah Resolutions, we certainly weren’t expecting anything like the following, sent to us from Rebecca Faulkner Branum of Edmond, Oklahoma.

A New Year sometimes sneaks into a life, changing a family’s calendar forever. Five years ago I was unable to eat apples or honey because I was neutropenic from cancer chemotherapy. The bacteria from uncooked food could have sickened or even killed me, so the Rosh Hashanah that snuck into my life that fall might have been hard to recognize, but it was there all the same.

Cancer appeared as a terrible phone call in September, one week after my only child’s 1st birthday, a day that became Day #1 of a new life. The year that followed was one of loss. Of course the usual cancer losses–my breasts, my hair, and a lot of lost lunches–but I also lost my job as a health care provider (because I couldn’t work with ill patients). Then I lost my savings, my car, my house, and finally my husband, who walked away from the stress.
Continue reading.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Friday Night: A Love Letter to My Old Friends

By Adina Kay-Gross for Kveller.com

Old FriendsWhen you become a new mother, you spend a lot of time talking about making mom friends. I’ve written about it, as have countless others. We’ve thought it about it honestly, earnestly, and some times desperately. It’s as awkward as dating, it’s a necessary evil, and sometimes, in lucky circumstances, lifelong relationships are formed, relationships that can save us.

But when we become new mothers, we don’t often talk about old friends.

These are the friends who are very well having children in step with you, friends who remember when you, yourself, were a child. Friends who know your parents and know your siblings and slept on the floor in your childhood bedroom and slept on the floor in your college dorm room and saw you with the hair-sprayed bangs and the bad skin and the skinned knees and the broken heart.

Yet, these friends now live in San Francisco and London and Chicago and New Jersey and Texas and Philadelphia and Colorado and Detroit. You are in New York and you are so overwhelmed you can’t pick up the phone to tell them that you’re overwhelmed but you love them. These friends have lives that in some ways resemble yours, but in many ways, don’t. Maybe these friends read different books or blogs. Maybe these friends aren’t readers at all. Maybe these friends don’t think about organic mosquito repellent. Maybe they do. Maybe these friends have spouses who aren’t Jewish. Maybe these friends have spouses who are way more Jewish. Maybe these friends have divorced. Maybe these friends don’t work, or maybe they do work, but you aren’t interested in their work, nor are they in yours. Maybe these friends let their kids watch TV. If you actually get to talking you’ll reveal that you sometimes do, too.

 Continue reading.


Monday, August 19, 2013

An Unexpected Family Reunion, Seven Decades After the Holocaust


My husband’s grandmother’s family was decimated by the Nazis. But at 95, she discovered relatives she never knew.


By Jennifer Mendelsohn for Tablet Magazine

MendelsohnI hardly thought it was a life-changing question.

We were driving home from a family gathering one evening this past May with my husband’s 95-year-old grandmother, Frieda, a Holocaust survivor from a small town outside Warsaw. I told her I’d been spending a lot of time on genealogy websites, immersed in tracing the trajectories of my immigrant relatives, most of whom—lured by the promise of America—had left Eastern Europe long before World War II. I had always thought Frieda’s family’s story was not as flush with immigrant tales; most of her relatives had stayed in Poland, which is precisely why Frieda had so few relatives. She and her late husband Chaim had survived the war by fleeing to Russia in November of 1939. They spent the next six years doing forced labor under increasingly dismal and treacherous conditions. They were the only members of their immediate families to have lived.

And so I asked Frieda what she had heard about America as a child. Did people talk about wanting to go there?

“I didn’t know very much. We didn’t talk about it,” she said. She shrugged dismissively.

And then, almost as an afterthought, she added: “My mother’s two older sisters went there. She was supposed to go, too, but the First World War broke out.”

My pulse quickened. In the 14 years I had known her, I had heard numerous stories about Frieda’s past recounted in vivid detail. But I couldn’t recall her ever once mentioning two aunts in America. And Frieda wasn’t someone who could afford to have two aunts unaccounted for.

“Mumma!” I said excitedly. “They must have had children and grandchildren here. We can find them! We have to!”

Frieda seemed skeptical. Her mother, Chaya Rojza, had somehow lost touch with her sisters before Frieda was even born; Frieda remembers her crying over the one photograph they’d sent back from America, a formal studio shot in which they wore long black skirts. Find them? It seemed preposterous. She didn’t even know their last names. All Frieda knew was that her aunts once lived in Chicago and that one had a husband named Avram. One aunt, she said, had died of cholera. When Frieda arrived in Baltimore in 1958, she’d tried to track them down using the meager methods at her disposal, to no avail.

 Continue reading.

Monday, August 12, 2013

We Need Better, Affordable Jewish Day Care Options

By Adina Kay-Gross


hebrew alphabet magnetsWhen my husband and I moved our family from Brooklyn to the wilds of the Long Island suburbs eight months ago, our chief concern was securing great childcare for our twin toddlers. In Brooklyn, from the time they were 3 months old, Avi and Maya had been cared for part-time by Charlotte, a superhero dressed as a 25-year-old aspiring opera singer. Charlotte (Sha-Sha, to everyone in our family who loved her, which was everyone) could do anything our two babies needed, including arrive at our apartment at 8 a.m. so that I could hop the subway to Manhattan while the girls splatter-painted the walls with oatmeal. Charlotte glided into our lives and made it infinitely better. Alas, Sha-Sha wasn’t interested in moving to the ‘burbs with us. Go figure.

And so, when we landed on the (north) shores of this island, we weighed our options. I would still be working part-time, but really, it was more like three quarters when you considered the longer commute. We didn’t know many people in our new town and worried that a nanny wouldn’t have much to do with the girls, what with the whole everyone-needs-a-car-to-get-anywhere culture. We didn’t like the idea of the girls sitting in the house all day. In addition, at 18 months, Avi and Maya were starting to pick things up, and it seemed like they might just benefit from being in a Jewish environment. 
Ideally, we wanted to enroll the girls in a synagogue preschool program. We liked the idea that through nursery school, we’d find a relatively organic and low-stress opportunity to meet other young families in our town. And we liked the idea that Avi and Maya would begin experiencing Shabbat, Hebrew, and the Jewish holidays, in a structured, accessible way.

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Monday, August 5, 2013

Summer Vacation is No Picnic for a Child with Autism

By Dana Meijler for Kveller

Summer vacation is upon us.

AutismAll over Facebook I see statuses of parents dealing with school being out. Grateful posts about not having to pack lunches quickly turn into posts about the hassles of shlepping kids to baseball practice or kids being underfoot saying, “I’m bored” 600 times a day and in between happy vacation photos and day trips and amusements parks.

In other words, the stuff of life. Or at least the stuff of life when you are a parent.

As the parent of a special needs child, I recognize these irritations but honestly, I also do my share of eye rolling when I read stuff like this. It’s tough not to shake my head when some parents’ biggest problems are that they cannot decide how many pairs of flowered underpants their kids need to pack to go to Jewish sleep-away camp for two weeks. It sometimes makes me cringe when I read stuff like this, not just because I think of friends who struggle financially and aren’t in the position to be able to pay to send their child to be cared for by others for two weeks. Or those, like me, whose kids just can’t participate in things like summer camp, because their needs are so specialized and they just need more attention and care than they can get in most summer programs.

Look, it would be great if I could be a bigger person. I don’t begrudge anyone anything but when I read that someone’s biggest challenge is whether to buy the BMW SUV or the Escalade and this is presented like Sophie’s Choice in the blogosphere, without one word of gratitude for the position they’re in, it’s hard to take what they have to say seriously.

I suppose this means I am not a bigger person, okay. Well, I can live with that.

Continue reading.

 

Monday, July 29, 2013

Surviving the Alien Apocalypse—and a 26-Hour Road Trip with Four Kids

By Michelle Tauber for Raising Kvell

5th WaveIt happened two miles from our house, six minutes into our drive, moments before we’d even merged onto the highway.

“Are we there yet?”

Oh, but I was ready. A decade and four children into my parenting career, I’d honed my car-trip tactics with exacting preparedness: individually packed snack tubs; new markers with ready-to-be-filled blank journals; puzzle books; a bribe bag of marshmallows; kid-sized neck pillows for comfortable napping. (No movies. Our one old-school road rule.)

“Are we there yet?”

The puzzles were boring, the markers lost their caps, the marshmallows underwhelmed and no one felt like napping. The minivan was restless, and we had 13 more hours to go.

I looked at my Kindle, desperately wishing I could disappear into the buzzy new YA bestseller I’d downloaded just before we left.

“Who wants to hear a story about aliens taking over the earth?”

It turns out, everyone did. I started reading aloud Rick Yancey’s The Fifth Wave, and before I’d finished the first page, the car had fallen silent. Even the 4-year-old was rapt. In the driver’s seat, so was my husband.

I’m a dedicated read-alouder, having attempted a British accent through all 4,100 pages of all seven Harry Potter books—twice, to my two oldest sons. I’ve read Charlotte’s Web in Starbucks, Ramona Quimby, Age 8 in line at the post office and Percy Jackson at the dentist’s office. But my favorite place to read aloud is in the car. Everyone’s captive.

Still, I hadn’t planned on reading this book. On page 10, the teenage heroine, Cassie, encounters a dying man and refuses to save him. “Blood dribbled over his bottom lip and hung quivering from his stubbly chin,” Yancey writes. “His teeth shone with blood.” I winced as I read it, watching my 5-year-old son’s eyes grow wide in the rearview mirror.

“Guys, this is creepy. Why don’t we stop?”

“Nooooooooooooooooooo!”

 Continue reading.

Monday, July 22, 2013

I Cheated My Sons Out of a Jewish Education

By Alina Adams

Cheated my sonsMy oldest son graduated from the 8th grade last week. His father and I picked this particular school for its academic rigor. By the time his nine years there were up, my son had visited England, passed Algebra 2, read Virgil (in Latin), played Katherine in a full staging of Shakespeare’s Henry V, and drawn a map of Europe freehand, including mountain ranges and bodies of water, with only the latitude and longitude as guidelines.

We were ecstatic about his education and how well it prepared him for the future.

Though the school is ostensibly non-denominational, their crest does feature a cross. When my son inquired about it, he was informed that the cross represents all religions. (He thus proceeded to refer to it as The Cross of All Religions for the past several years. It was funny the first time. Not so much the 74th.)

Up through 6th grade, in addition to regular school, I also sent my son to Hebrew School twice a week for two hours each. It made for a long day–almost 12 hours in total, but I felt it was necessary. By the 7th grade, however, his schedule became so full with secular academics that we ended up dropping Hebrew School, trying to make up for it with weekly Shabbat services at our temple, instead.

Because we were so happy with the school for our older son, we sent our younger one there, as well. However, as it’s an all-boy school, that wasn’t an option for our daughter. Based on my experience with the cross-town rush from one site to another, I insisted to my husband that we send her to a Jewish Day School, so she could get everything in one place. (Of course, this being New York City, my wanting her to attend a Jewish Day School did not necessarily mean we’d be accepted to one; so we did look broadly, just in case.)

Continue reading. 

Monday, July 15, 2013

How Many Shabbat Candles Does a Divorced Woman Light?

 By Mayim Bialik for Kveller

This post is the last entry in Mayim’s month-long series about the Jewish aspects of divorce.

MayimAs a child, I lit two Shabbat candles with my mother every time she lit Shabbat candles. I felt like a little Ima (mother), like they make you pretend in preschool or kindergarten Hebrew school. It’s practice, you know. For when you are a “real” Ima. Imas light two candles.

When I got married, I had not been consistently lighting Shabbat candles for years. After leaving my parents’ home and going to college, I stopped, but I would light them with the other girls at Hillel when I attended services there and looked forward to a day when I would light them as a married woman.

I bought antique Victorian candlesticks for my wedding. I was not the typical Jewish girl so I didn’t buy the typical expensive silver kind that many religious girls dream of.

Lighting candles as a married woman was very nice and gratifying. I felt I was creating light for me and my partner in a sacred space. When my first son was born two years after I was married, I added a small candle for him, as is the custom; one for each additional child. That first time I lit that little candle for my son was a very special Shabbat. My husband and I blessed him so that he be like “Menasseh and Ephraim,” and we stumbled over the Hebrew, so new to both of our lips.

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Monday, July 8, 2013

How to Vacation Without Your Kids Without Missing Them the Whole Time

 By Ronnie Koenig for Kveller

Vacation“I want to hug that couple’s baby. Is that weird?”

I asked my husband this as we are sat poolside at our condo last year in the Turks & Caicos. Little Man and Bun Bun were 9 months old at the time and were staying with Grandma and Grandpa and Auntie while we took some much needed R&R. I was thrilled to be away, but suddenly, here was this little blonde Austrian baby-man, a doppelganger for my Little Man, and all I wanted to do was scoop him up in my arms, give him belly kisses, and maybe even wipe his cute little nose boogies.

Yeah, that wouldn’t be weird.

Luke and I were lucky in that we got to do a good deal of traveling before we became parents to the twins. We slurped over-sized gelatos in Sorrento, walked on a glacier in Alaska, and lounged on a black sand beach in Hawaii. The concept of a getaway BT (before twins) meant taking a break from our jobs and the stress of city life. Nowadays, the thought of vacationing sans Little Man and Bun Bun seems like a blissful relief from our duties as servants.

Sure, I enjoyed the requisite pina coladas and the post card-perfect sunsets in Turks & Caicos. But I also spent a good deal of time missing Bun Bun and Little Man. Austrian Little Man was on vacation with his parents, and they had brought grandma along to help. Brilliant! Why hadn’t we thought of that? These good Austrian parents were making blissful memories by the pool while I was on my laptop with a weak internet connection, Skypeing a grainy outline of my son and daughter who by then had probably learned how to make themselves a bowl of Cheerios and forgotten all about me.

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Monday, July 1, 2013

Jews for Hearth and Home

 Jewish figurinesOld men with sidelocks and stethoscopes, violinists in black suits and hats, humpbacks with big noses and prayer shawls. Such is the population not of Kazimierz, Krakow's historically Jewish district, but of the knickknack and souvenir shops lining its cobblestone streets.

For years, these "lucky" Jewish figurines have been objects of fascination and revulsion for Jewish tourists to Krakow. As part of this year's Jewish Culture Festival, an event which has been drawing Poles and foreigners to the city for 23 years, the Ethnographic Museum will host "Souvenir Talisman Toy," an interactive exhibit exploring the many meanings of these figurines, opening a dialogue inspired by the confluence of tourism, superstition, nostalgia, and craft.

"Souvenir Talisman Toy" includes an utterly absorbing trilingual (English, Polish, and Hebrew) website that asks visitors to upload their photographs of Jewish figurines and respond to others', posing questions like: "Are they religious figures?" and "How are they similar to antisemitic imagery?"

Now that Krakow is experiencing a "Jewish Jewish Revival," with the deepening involvement of Jewish Poles (and Poles with Jewish backgrounds) in contemporary Jewish life, we're starting to wonder: Will the flesh-and-blood and the wooden move out of nostalgia to create something new?

- Sarah Zarrow

Monday, June 24, 2013

I Need to Stop Yelling at My Kids

By Yael Armstrong

Occasionally I like to think about the kind of mom I want to be and the kind of mother I actually am.  Am I calm and compassionate? Overprotective?  Who do my boys see?

Last week when I asked myself this question it was at the end of a very long day. I was tired from spending hours at the park, then coming home to a house that needed cleaning and followed around by two little boys who wanted me to entertain them but were soon content to entertain themselves by messing up whatever I’d just cleaned. The day ended with both boys refusing to eat what I’d made them for dinner. A momentary food fight ensued and I yelled at them to stop it. At bath time they splashed and shrieked and the headache that had been holding itself at bay throughout the day burst into my temples around the time that the oldest pushed the youngest down and they both started to cry. At bedtime they wanted to read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The irony was not lost on me. I put them to bed and they got up six times until standing over dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, I yelled for them to lay down and go to sleep.

Somewhere between the last dish and cleaning up the living room for the fourth time that day I realized what it was that I needed to change. I have become a mother who yells to get her point across. Throughout the day, at the park when someone wouldn’t come when it was time to go, or at home when someone didn’t want to eat, I asked them nicely to stop, to listen, then I inevitably hit my limit and was finished. I no longer cared why they didn’t want to do something, I wanted them to do it my way and stop whining about it. End of story. I stopped seeing the 4-year-old who was trying to figure life out and needed a little guidance, and only saw that I was tired and annoyed.

Continue reading.

Monday, June 17, 2013

My Southern Jewish Son

My Southern Jewish Son, the US Army Sergeant/Black Hawk Helicopter Crew Chief 

By Ann Zivitz Kientz



When we brought our baby son home from the hospital nearly 27 years ago, we imagined many things for his future.

The Army wasn’t one of them.

The Jewish Chaplains Council estimates that there are currently around 10,000 active duty men and women known to be Jewish. My son, Seargant Harrel Carlton Kimball, is one of those active duty Jewish soldiers.

I guess it shouldn’t have been such a surprise – from a very young age, he insisted on running outside every time he heard a “hoptercopter” in the sky! We got really lucky after basic training; he was assigned to his individual training at a base that had a retired Rabbi serving as a Chaplain. It gave him an opportunity to connect to something familiar and normal during this big transition in his life. Then he was assigned to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, for his home base. He attended synagogue for a couple of Shabbat services and the high holy days in Nashville, Tennessee, about 45 minutes away, and the congregation was very happy to accommodate him!

And then came his first deployment in 2010 to Afghanistan. How does a Jewish mother bless her child before an event like this? The only thing I could think to do was the priestly blessing over him. Much to my surprise, he did not stop me, or even seem embarrassed when others passed us by at the airport. It was a moment I will never forget.

Continue reading.

Monday, June 10, 2013

My Super-Jewish Toddler


I've felt estranged by religion in my adult life, but my 2 year old sings along to blessings, dances in synagogue, and displays what might even be called a religious fervor 


By Anna Solomon

Super Jewish ToddlerSummer was ending, and the dreaded question slipped up on us again: where would we go for the High Holidays? Which was inevitably followed–-after the usual debate over rabbis, distances, and the chances of there being strange organ music–-by the next question: why go at all?

It had been easy in Park Slope, Brooklyn to find a community of Jewish parents and rollicking Tot Shabbat services without ever having to answer this question, or join a congregation. But in June we'd moved with our 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Sylvie, to Providence, Rhode Island. And as August turned into September, we found ourselves at a Friday night open house at a nearby Reform synagogue where everything had been set up outside. The night was warm, the people were friendly, and the barbecue was good. There was even a crafts table for the children.

Then the service began. We sat in the back, next to a family we'd recently met, agreeing that as soon as our kids got antsy, we'd leave.

Sure enough, as soon as the cantor started singing, the children stood up in their seats. Soon, I thought, they'll start to whine, and we can all go off to the lawn on the other side of the synagogue, where the kids can play and the adults can debrief.

But there was no whining. Instead, as if on cue, the children started to dance to the blessings. They bent their knees, rocked their hips, chicken-winged their arms – but gently, as if they knew exactly where they were. Sylvie started to sing along with the cantor. She didn't know most of the words, of course, she just copied them the best she could, her mouth wide open, her body swaying.

Continue reading.
 


Monday, June 3, 2013

Cutting Family Ties

The cards my Christian paternal grandparents sent me as a child came with small checks—and a hidden agenda


 The cards my Christian paternal grandparents sent me as a child came with small checks—and a hidden agenda

I learned of my grandfather’s death through an Internet search.

I had been estranged from my paternal grandparents for more than a decade, but four years ago, I decided that the time had come to reconnect; they were getting old, and I longed to share some family news with them—I was expecting another child. I didn’t have a current address or phone number for them, so I entered my grandfather’s full name into a search engine, hoping to find contact information.

Instead, I found an obituary. He had died of a stroke two months earlier.

Stunned, I continued to read the notice of his death. My father, uncle, aunt, cousins, and great-aunts and uncles appeared on the list of surviving relatives. But there was no mention of my twin sister or myself. We had been obliterated.

The next morning, I called my best friend from college and cried wretched tears as the story poured out. “They want to erase our existence,” I complained.

She was sympathetic but candid: “How can you complain when you removed them from your life,” my friend replied, “just like they removed you from theirs?”

***

My parents split up when I was 4 years old. To describe their divorce as “acrimonious” would be an understatement. Raised first in the Congregationalist Church and then in the United Church of Christ, my father underwent an Orthodox conversion to Judaism during his marriage to my mother, who is Jewish; after their divorce, however, he gave up both Judaism and Christianity. He became a follower of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and took a Hindi name.

After my mother won full custody, my sister and I visited with my father only sporadically. He occasionally sent exotic gifts from his extensive world travels but remained distant from our everyday lives. My mother continued to raise us Jewish in a traditional, though not Orthodox, home, and her Jewish parents played an integral role in our childhood.

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Monday, May 27, 2013

Graven Images Onscreen: Narrowing Our View?


By Ann Zivitz Kientz

Prince of EgyptYou shall have no other gods beside Me. You shall not make for yourself any graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. (Exodus, Chapter 20, Verses 3-4)
I’m wondering about “graven images.” Specifically, I’m wondering if Steven Spielberg and Cecil B. DeMille have helped or hindered us with their images.

When I taught 5th grade religious school, at the end of every class I took about 15 minutes to tell the story of the Torah portion of the week. And when Exodus came around, I used one entire class time to tell the story of Moses from his birth through the giving of the 10 Commandments. Though I am not a master storyteller, I did get quite good at this story, and each year took great pride in the wide eyes looking back at me.

Then one year, as I explained my vision of the golden calf (“imagine all the women in your family and your classmates’ families taking off their rings and bracelets and necklaces and melting them down to make this idol, it must have been about this big…”), and held my hands about two feet apart to demonstrate the size of the idol, a child interrupted me to tell me that I was “wrong” about the size. It was large enough to ride on, he said, and he knew this because he had seen it in the movie The Prince of Egypt!

Needless to say, we spent a long time that day discussing the difference between faith, and film, a religious vision, or someone else’s artistic vision, and that any one person’s vision is not necessarily “the truth.” I realized it’s not just that student’s generation that sees something onscreen, and then associates the film image with the Biblical story represented. I thought about my parents’ generation, and their ingrained vision of Moses parting the Sea of Reeds, courtesy of Cecil B. DeMille.

The images of God as an old man in the sky, or Charlton Heston as Moses, or a golden calf of a certain size in a movie, are all very Hollywood, and also childlike. The problem comes when we outgrow those images and do not grow into our own adult visions of faith. I think the baby sometimes gets thrown out with the bath water. If you can’t believe anymore like you did as a kid, then for some it is hard to have faith in anything as Jewish adults.

So I ask you: are the images from Mr. Spielberg and Mr. DeMille “graven images”? And even if they are not technically “graven images,” are they helpful or hurtful?

Monday, May 20, 2013

Shabbat — The Marriage Cure


Shabbat Marriage CureThere are many things that make being Orthodox difficult. In fact, if I started a list right now I think I would be busy for hours, compiling all the challenging aspects of following halacha as I understand it. But no matter how frustrating it can be sometimes, no matter how many times a day I want to rip off my hair covering, as soon as Shabbat rolls around, I can’t imagine being anything but Orthodox. Shabbat is the reward for making it through the week.

Shabbat has always meant, to me, a stretch of uninterrupted relaxation. It’s enforced relaxation, in fact — just sleeping, eating, reading and hanging out with family and friends. As I grow older and my weeks became more stressful, I am more and more grateful for the blessing that is Shabbat, counting down the days until Friday as soon as Monday begins. It is a weekly mini vacation made all the more special by the infusion of spirituality that I’m certain I can feel almost tangibly. And now that I’m married, Shabbat means all that and more.

Instead of a personal blessing, Shabbat now feels like something created for couples to restore their relationships to their ideal states. After a week of work and school and distraction, of television and texting and typing, Shabbat is 25 hours where it’s just me and Jeremy and nothing in between us. Even if we wanted to avoid each other, all we have are books and magazines to distract us from one another.

Our friends told us that Friday would be stressful, a hectic day of rushing to prepare the food for Shabbat. Instead, the anticipation of Shabbat sets in on Thursday night, and Friday is, if not relaxing — I tend to go overboard with the cooking — a day of cheerful bustling, waiting for the moment to welcome Shabbat that week. It helps, of course, that this year Jeremy and I both have Friday off, and we’re not trying to fit all our preparations in around work and school. (That will go away eventually, for now we’re enjoying the perks.)

Continue reading.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Ryan Lochte’s Talmud Lesson


The Talmud tells parents to teach our kids to swim. The Olympic champ and reality TV star makes that easier.

 
By Malina Saval

LochteThe world was formally introduced to Ryan Lochte last summer, when the swimmer won two golds, two silvers, and one bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics in London. We vaguely remembered his blue eyes and shaggy hair from the 2008 games in Beijing, but neither he nor his collection of hip-hop-wannabe footwear had yet reached Jeah!-level popularity. Now the IQ-deficient Adonis was everywhere, posing on the blocks, peeing in the pool, and flashing a mouthful of bling. He was meant to be Michael Phelps’ successor, but instead he became a beefcake centerfold in a pink Speedo of his own design, his shirtless image plastered on the covers of Glamour and Vogue magazines.

Within hours of taking first in the 400-meter individual medley, Lochte (rap name “Reezy”) appeared on every imaginable media outlet expressing his longing to join the estimable tabloid-train-wreck-relationship club by becoming the new Bachelor. A YouTube video in which Lochte and teammate Matt Grevers “chillax” after practice while debating the etymological difference between shampoo and “cleansing rinse” went viral. Gawker dubbed him a “douchebag.” Lochte’s new reality show What Would Ryan Lochte Do?, which premiered last night on E!, looks so out of control—he plays drunk golf in one teaser—it’s bound to propel the dopey swimmer to even greater depths of fame.

And yet, I’m here to argue that it’s time we stop making fun of Lochte, at least long enough to focus on a career achievement that has thus far gone completely unnoticed in the Jewish community. Lochte, who isn’t Jewish but believes God has a “plain” for everyone, may not be a rabbinical scholar, but what he has done—and to a much larger degree than most swimmers in the history of the sport—is spread Talmudic wisdom to swim fans, Jewish and non-Jewish, all over the world. Let me explain.

 Continue reading. 

Monday, May 6, 2013

Overcoming My Eating Disorder & Raising a Healthy Daughter


I gave birth to my daughter six months ago, and, a few sleep-deprived weeks later, I realized it was right around the 10th “anniversary” of when I was admitted to a hospital for an eating disorders inpatient program.

When I try to reconcile the memory of my scared, enervated teen self with myself today, as a (somewhat) confident mother of two with visibly muscled biceps from lugging around a giant purse, a diaper bag, a breast pump, a baby, and sometimes a 38-pound 3-year-old, it’s difficult. But I still vividly remember the feelings of insecurity, self-doubt, and physical weakness. As it turns out, you can be too thin after all.

There were other factors involved, of course, but I first fixated on being skinny because I knew it would make me “someone” in a world where I wasn’t quite sure yet how I, as a nice Jewish girl, could make any kind of significant mark. What began as a diet veered into rigidity, ruling out hangouts with friends because food was usually involved and an early return from summer camp because, overwhelmed without my typical menu, I just decided to eat an apple and a cereal bar and call it a day. What turned into rigidity became a dangerous obsession when every new, lower number on the scale was a success and anything below that number was my new personal challenge.

Intellectually, I knew I was harming myself, but I couldn’t stop.
Weekly sessions with a therapist and numerous doctor appointments later, I finally realized I needed more intensive help and entered the hospital, where I met a lot of other sick women and several sick men. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, they were almost all amazing, intelligent, funny, warmhearted people who had still fallen victim to the tangled webs woven by anorexia and bulimia. Some of them are still struggling, and some of them will probably never climb their way out.

Continue reading.