May 13, 2024 · 7:30 am

Sitting in the Land of Limbo

by Anna Stolley Persky (Fairfax, VA)

Today we are burying my friend, my Jewish light, and it is gray and cold and muddy, and we are in the middle of a graveyard, and we are in the middle of a war, and people all over the world are telling us that they hate us, and I believe them.

It is December 2023. We are in the Philadelphia suburbs, where my friend and I grew up together, and where she is now being lowered into a hole in the earth. I am with her brothers and sister and father and friends, along with her three children. Her husband, their father, died of cancer more than ten years ago. 

My friend’s children, the youngest still in high school, are orphans.

There is a war going on more than 5,700 miles from us here, under a tent that barely shields us from the wind and rain. 

Some of my friends who aren’t Jewish are marching, even yelling that Zionists have blood on their hands. 

I look down at my hands. They are cold and tinged pink. I put them in the pockets of my jacket.

We are saying the Mourner’s Kaddish in Hebrew, but in my head, I am hearing Avinu Malkeinu, “Our Father, Our King,” a prayer that asks God for mercy, forgiveness, and redemption. My friend was a cantor. She led prayers in her lovely, lilting voice at synagogues in Florida before moving back to Philadelphia. She taught me what it means to be Jewish, and now she is dead, and I am standing among the lost and left behind, and I know better to ask why, and yet, still I ask. She was 54, the same age as me. 

My friend taught me that to be Jewish means to ask the questions that can’t be answered or, rather, can be answered in vastly different ways. She taught me that to be Jewish is to live in the land of limbo, the endless thirst in a desert. 

I don’t want her body trapped inside a coffin. I want to open it up and let her fly, but my friend isn’t in there; she is already away, in the somewhere else. Is she with her husband? Is she part of the wind? We debated death, my friend and I, and then we agreed that it probably meant returning to the universe in a squishy way we couldn’t fully explain. Then we laughed and tried again.

Here’s something I would like to ask my friend: Should we ask God for mercy? Why should we pray for redemption? What did she do but live in a way that was more good than bad, where she helped people find comfort in Jewish traditions? What have I done, what have any of us done but try to survive?

Do we need to ask God for forgiveness if we are fighting a war? Each life has value, so is there such a thing as a just war? What if you are attacked first? Does anything justify slaughter and rape? Does anything justify killing children?

These are the questions she would have debated with me – Jew against Jew, not against, not really, just trying to look at a problem from all the different angles. She appreciated nuance, something I fear is disappearing.

It’s time for each of us to take turns with the shovel.

We cover her coffin with bits of the earth, dirt, stones, each of us, three times. The first time we use the back of the shovel to demonstrate our reluctance to say goodbye. Then the other two times, we turn the shovel back over to symbolize our acceptance that she has gone from us.

One: Do you remember that when we first met? We were seven. You wrote poetry and ate Tastykakes in the library even though the rules said no eating in the library. You smirked while you opened the plastic wrapper. I want you to come back and debate with me why those rules, but not all rules, could be broken.

Two: Are we going to be all right? I mean, all of us, the Jews, and me without you? Your son called me on your phone to tell me that you had died, and I already knew because your sister texted me first, but when your son called on your phone, I thought it was you anyway. This shovel thing isn’t working. I see your children. They are looking down, stunned.

Three:  When we were in high school, you would let me lie next to you, and you would play for me “Fire and Rain,” and we ignored the Jesus in the song, but I am still on “I always thought I would see you again” repeat.

My friend was still living when the war started, although she was sick and knew she was dying. She was still living when she told me to turn off the television, that she couldn’t watch anymore because she was so angry, and she was worried that her anger would twist into a blood lust. She was so honest, sometimes, and unafraid of putting to words what the rest of us hold inside and allow to fester. She was also not honest sometimes, which is to say, human and mortal. 

Then she said, turn the television back on, and we talked about all the different emotions we were feeling and how they could exist at the same time, and all of them could be true to us. 

I look at my friend’s children again. They are Israeli American. Their father’s family had to flee Iraq, their home, to Israel or they would have been killed. My friend’s ancestors escaped pogroms. It is a miracle these children are alive, these three beautiful beings.

It is raining harder.

I want to sit with my friend in the land of limbo. I want to sit with my friend who reveled in the gray. 

It is perfect for her, this weather.

Anna Stolley Persky is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at George Mason University. Her essays have been published in Pithead Chapel, Two Hawks Quarterly, and The Washington Post. Her fiction has been published in Mystery Tribune, The Satirist, and Five on the Fifth. 

Leave a comment

Filed under American Jewry, Family history, history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

May 6, 2024 · 7:30 am

Thirsty roots

by Jane Schulman (New York, NY)

We buried my father on a rise  

under a jack pine where steam rose 

from the fresh-dug grave, colliding  

with January air.  

My sons unloaded the casket  

from the back of a pickup and walked it  

to the open grave, a Star of David  

carved on the coffin lid. 

For years my father railed against  

synagogues, Zionism, all kinds  

of God talk – evangelical  

in his atheism.  

But in the end, when I asked  

one last time if I could bury him  

when he died, he shrugged and said 

if it means so much to you.  

It did.  It does. As his last gift,  

he let me bury him a Jew.  

Now the Star of David rests  

above his chest as thirsty roots 

of the jack pine mingle  

with heartache and nettle. 

Jane Schulman is a poet and fiction writer. She works as a speech pathologist with children with autism and cognitive delays.  Jane published her first book of poetry, Where Blue Is Blue, with Main Street Rag in October, 2020.  Her writing has appeared widely online and in print. She was a finalist for the Morton Marr Prize at Southwest Review.     

2 Comments

Filed under American Jewry, Family history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism, poetry

Tagged as , , , , ,

April 29, 2024 · 7:30 am

It’s relatively quiet here in Central Israel

Rina Lapidus (Petah Tikva, Israel)

The rocket shelling from Gaza usually takes place between early morning and early hours of night. After midnight there are usually no air-raid sirens, and you can snatch a few hours of uninterrupted sleep until 4 or sometimes even 5. And thank heaven even for this – “Alhamdulillah,” as the Arabs say: Praise be to God. Aside from rocket shelling, the Central District, where I live, is not really impacted by the ravages of war. No large centers for evacuees from border areas are located here, and neither do you see many wounded people walking about in the streets; no burned houses, except for a few high-rises here and there damaged by shelling, with walls partly destroyed and some debris and fragments of missiles scattered around on the roads and sidewalks below. Also, medical centers are bursting at the seams with all the wounded brought here from other areas, so it is impossible for anyone else to get treatment – like me, for example, a woman who is neither young nor healthy.

Still, I did not give up hope and ordered a taxi to take me to the hospital. The hospital is in the city center of Petah Tikva, north-east of Tel Aviv. The Arab taxi driver who showed up was pleasantly surprised when I agreed to ride in his car. But I thought to myself that it wasn’t really up to me to agree or disagree: the taxi company must have sent me an Arab driver because all their Jewish drivers had probably been called up to the front. However, seeing that the driver was happy that I was prepared to travel with him, I thought it unlikely that he would harm me along the way. Besides, I could stick my bag in the window to keep it open, so if worst came to worst, and the driver’s behavior seemed to me suspicious, I would be able to escape. 

The ride was uneventful, and I arrived safely at the Petach Tikva hospital. At the entrance lobby of the health fund to which I belong sat an elderly Mizrachi Jewish woman. By the look of her she was about 75 years old. Her skin color was brown, but her face was black to the point that it radiated blackness. She sat there mumbling, “My grandson is gone… they killed him in Gaza…” Her words struck me to the quick. I was so shaken that tears burst from my eyes. I went up to her, bent down, and reached out to give her a hug. She shrank away, and pushed me back. Then she shouted at me: “What do you think you are doing, putting your hands around me? They killed my grandson in Gaza! And you came here to hug me?! What’s got into you? My grandson is killed in Gaza! Do you understand?!” I sat down next to her and cried. A Russian-Jewish cleaning lady came up and offered us two cups half-filled with water. I took one and drank. The Mizrachi woman waved away the cup intended for her and shouted, “I’ll manage… but they killed my grandson in Gaza!!”

I went to the reception window and asked a female secretary sitting behind it to set an appointment with a doctor. In reply, she said: “Can’t you see that there are no appointments available? Can’t you see all these soldiers – wounded and sick?” But the other secretary told me: “Try private, not through medical insurance. Maybe you can get an appointment that way.” I said to myself, “Oh, that’s a good idea. Why didn’t I think of it myself?” I thanked the secretary and turned to go.

I headed back home, but as I was getting off the bus, the air-raid siren started, signaling that the shelling from Gaza had resumed. Around me, everyone was running, looking for bomb-shelters in the nearby buildings. I couldn’t have run even if I had wanted to. I lay down on the asphalt of the sidewalk, face down, and put my hands over my ears, to protect my eardrums from bursting in case of an explosion. It was a short barrage, lasting only about fifteen minutes. When the sirens stopped wailing, I tried to get up from the pavement but could not, because there was nothing around that I could grab for support to push myself up. My face was sore as well, because I had scratched it against the asphalt. There I was, lying down prone on the pavement. At that point, people started coming out of shelters. I saw a Bukharan boy, beckoned to him to come over, and asked him to help me get up on my feet. He did, and I went home.

At the entrance to the building where I live, I saw a crowd of people, all of them religious Mizrachi Jews, like my next-door neighbors. I turned to a woman and asked, “What’s going on?” “The Ohanas’ eldest son was killed in Gaza,” she replied. “When is the funeral?” I asked. “It’s finished. We’ve just come back from the funeral, and are starting shiv’a now.” I went up to my apartment, left my bag, and came downstairs again to take part in the neighbors’ shiv’a. The apartment and the landing were full of people, men and women sitting separately, as dictated by religious custom. On the tables outside, there were sweetmeats. A woman whom I had not met before brought me some cakes. I said to her: “Since the war started, I haven’t been able to eat. Every morsel sticks in my throat. I keep thinking of the young people who were killed in the war and they will never be able to eat again.” She said: “I feel the same way. When the war started, I also cried non-stop and was unable to speak for several days. But you must get over it.” I said: “I can’t.” She said: “You mustn’t stop eating completely. You see what the Arabs are doing to us… don’t do it to yourself.” I said: “I’ll try.” I sat there and cried. 

Sometime later I returned to my apartment. Then my cousin, Olivia, called from Australia, where she lives, and started lecturing me, in a patronizing and didactic tone, that Israel should end the warfare and stop punishing the Gaza Arabs collectively. I told her, “It’s not a collective punishment. Gazan leaders keep appearing in the English-language media and saying that, as soon as they are able to, they will invade Israel again and again, the second and third and fourth and millionth time. We need to make sure that they cannot do this, that they don’t have the ability to invade Israel and massacre us again and again.” She said: “The massacre they carried out on October 7 was justified, because Israelis hadn’t been treating the Gazan Arabs well enough – they had even cut off their electricity.” I said to her: “Why don’t they generate their own electricity? Do they really believe that they can burn our babies alive and we will supply them with electricity in return??” Then I told her: “Don’t call me ever again!” and slammed down the phone.

In the evening I called my daughter, who lives in the north of Israel, and told her: “Get out of there and come to live with me, in my apartment in Petah Tikva. It is quiet here, and in the North there is going to be a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.” She said: “My husband can’t leave his job.” I said: “I will come down and take your girls to me.” She said: “My youngest is only a few months old. How will you take care of her? It’s hard, you won’t be able to.” I said: “I’ll take the older girls, then. Actually, the girls should be taken abroad.” My daughter said: “Do you really believe that it’s safer abroad? With all the anti-Semitism there?” I said: “Which is better – to stay inside the Warsaw ghetto or to hide in the Polish part of the city?” She said: “Inside it’s safer because in the Polish quarter you can let out that you are a Jew even by the way you look at people.” I said: “When WWII ended, not one whole brick was left in the Warsaw ghetto. You have to hide in the Polish part. Yes, it’s true that you can easily let out that you are a Jew, so learn not to look people in the face. Just keep your eyes to the ground – don’t raise them.”

In the evening, I said to myself that I should hurry up and sleep while there is no shelling: “Who knows what the night will bring and whether the Arabs who are throwing missiles at us will let us sleep.” I took my blood pressure and cholesterol pills, and went to bed. I didn’t really sleep: it was a kind of drowsiness mixed with nightmares and hallucinations. In my mind’s eye, the Arabs from Gaza were bombarding us with shells and missiles. These were flying in the sky in every direction, and Israelis were intercepting them in midair. And among all the shells, missiles and interceptions, I and my two young granddaughters are on a plane headed abroad. I woke up in a panic and thought to myself, “I didn’t really dream this up. A few days ago, I actually saw how, at the Lod international airport near Tel Aviv, an Israeli plane was taking off into the night sky amid shells, missiles and interceptions swishing hither and thither all around it.” But then I made up my mind, “Right now, it doesn’t matter so much if it’s reality or a nightmare or a hallucination. I have to try and go back to sleep as soon as possible, before they start shelling us again.”

Rina Lapidus was born in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. After graduating from a high school in Haifa, she obtained her BA, MA and PhD degrees in Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Since 1984, she has been working at the faculties of Jewish Studies and Humanities at Bat-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan. Rina Lapidus is divorced, with one daughter and three granddaughters. 

2 Comments

Filed under history, Israel Jewry, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism, Russian Jewry

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 22, 2024 · 7:30 am

Trekking to Lakewood, New Jersey 

by Carol Blatter (Tucson, AZ)

“It will be a boring visit, I know it will be. I want to be with my friends. They’re going to the movies, and I’ll be left out. Do we have to go, Mom?”

“We have to visit Grandma. She always expects us a week before Passover every year and we don’t want to disappoint her. It’s too hard for her to make a seder. So going a week ahead gives her the feeling that we are together, like it’s a real seder. And as always, we will celebrate two nights of seders, one with friends, and one with the three of us at home next week.”

Dad nodded his head in agreement. 

“No discussion, we’re going.”

“Ok, I guess we’re going.” I hated that long ride down the Garden State Parkway. “Maybe I’ll read a book on the way or take a nap. Maybe we won’t have to stay long.”

Dad and Mom glared at me after I said that. Clearly, they were displeased with me.

Once we arrived, Grandma kissed me and gave me a huge embrace. I almost lost my balance.

Dad greeted his Mother. “Rosie, how are you?” Dad always called his Mother by her first name. I always thought it was disrespectful but I kept this to myself. Dad never liked to be challenged.

It was no surprise to see Grandma scrubbing the sink, then slicing some foods on a special board set aside for Passover each year. Grandma followed the requirements for Passover food preparation.  How she managed to do all her Passover cooking in this tiny kitchen still surprised me. She changed dishes, pots, and pans for this holiday. It was hard to imagine where she stored these Passover-only kitchen items after the eight-day holiday ceased. It was here in Grandma’s kitchen I learned about keeping Passover.

Grandma and her second husband, Max, lived in an dingy upstairs apartment with a  kitchen, a living room, a dining room, and a bedroom. Max was a miser. Anyone seeing this apartment would have been amazed to learn of my step-grandfather’s wealth. His adult children made sure there was a prenuptial agreement so that Grandma had no inheritance upon Max’s death. While my dad was upset when he learned of this, he and Grandma realized that she should go ahead with the marriage. It was better for Grandma to have a companion despite the spitefulness of Max’s adult children. Grandma started almost penniless prior to marrying Max, and she ended up the same way.

From the moment we arrived at Grandma’s apartment, I noticed how much older she and my step-grandfather looked from last year. Grandma was a short, stout lady with white hair pinned up behind her head, probably in her seventies then, maybe older, and she looked shorter and heavier. Max was a tall, slim, white-haired man, partially bald, who looked tired and frailer. He barely spoke. I never remember having any conversation with him. 

Suddenly, instead of disliking this trip, I wanted to help Grandma with the food preparations. I can’t explain the change in my mood. Instead of being sullen and annoying, I started to act more grown-up, not like a spoiled pre-adolescent. Maybe I wanted a relationship with my grandma and felt sad that so many years had passed since I had last seen her. So many of my friends had Zadies and Bubbies they were close with. Some lived with their families; some lived close by. I wasn’t so fortunate. We lived far apart. Maybe it had to do with my father’s distant relationship with his Mother; they were only intermittently close. Perhaps Dad’s relationship with Grandma had been marred by his having to go to work at the age of 14 in order to support their family. He had lost his childhood and his education. Maybe he suppressed his anger at her. But I also sensed in that hug, as their eyes met, he really loved her.

I still remember a surprising thing that happened when I saw Grandma many years ago. We were having a great time. I told her about my teacher and my friends. Then I remember saying that I had eaten a bacon, lettuce, & tomato sandwich for lunch that day. Grandma became upset. I had no idea why. She went into our kitchen, and within a few minutes I heard nasty rumblings between Grandma and Dad. I heard the word “bacon.” Why were they arguing about bacon? Several years later, I understood why Grandma had been so upset. She observed kosher dietary laws. Bacon isn’t kosher. She and Max ate only kosher meat and poultry, supervised by a rabbi with an OU label on each product. I think she was disappointed that we didn’t keep kosher. I wondered why my parents didn’t, but I never asked them. Mom came from an Orthodox Sephardic Jewish home, and Dad had grown up in an Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish home. Why didn’t they follow the traditions that they had grown up with?

From these visits to Lakewood, I learned how to choose kosher for Passover foods and make a home clean and ready for Passover. Grandma told me that she cleaned cabinets, counters, closets and searched for crumbs, chametz, which had to be disposed of before the holiday began. Did Max help her? I doubted it. He was a sedentary, reclusive person. Maybe she never asked him. Throughout her life, Grandma worked hard and rarely had help. She was used to it. But as she aged, I could see how it became harder for her to do some of the things she used to do.

“Grandma, let me help. I know how to do things for Passover. I have friends whose parents keep everything kosher for Passover.”

“Here, you can put these dishes on the table.”

“And what about the silverware?

“Yes. And you can put them out, too.”

“Grandma, do you want me to put a piece of lettuce on each small plate to go under the gefilte fish?”

“Yes, bubbelah. Yes, meine aynikl.”

“Do you want me to fill these glasses with wine?”

“Yes.” 

“Can I have some?”

“How old are you now my bubbelah?”

“Eleven.” 

“Ok, a little schnapps can’t hurt.”

Then she pressed me against her large bosom, gave me a huge hug, and kissed me on each cheek. Her face filled with a warm glow that I felt for days afterwards. 

I knew Grandma had traveled in steerage with her parents and siblings from Poland to New York in the late 1800’s. I knew they had been sick for days in choppy waters. She spoke Yiddish and had to learn English in a foreign land. I knew her first marriage to a physically and emotionally abusive man had been a disaster. More choppy waters. And I knew she had raised four children herself after she locked my Grandpa out of their apartment. I doubt that Grandpa Henry gave her any money to support their children once she locked him out. 

Many years later, she married Max, who enjoyed her meals and her housekeeping without providing her with a more enjoyable and enriching life. Why would they remain in this little apartment when they could have lived with a little more luxury? When Grandma held me to her bosom and hugged and kissed me, I realized how amazing it was that she had any love left, having been deprived of love most of her life. I withheld tears. Grandma deserved better.

We sat down to eat lunch in their small dining area. The table was just big enough to fit five of us. The meal was reminiscent of what we would eat next week at the seder at the home of our friends. Gefilte fish. Then chicken soup with matzah balls followed by slices of potato kugel. For the main dish, she served chicken breasts seasoned with paprika and cloves of garlic, covered in onion slices, and bathed in chicken broth for baking. Everything tasted delicious. Then came my favorite. Dessert. Chocolate-covered macaroons, a specialty every year for Passover. Swee-touch-nee tea, Kosher for Passover,  ended the meal.

After lunch, I asked Grandma to tell me how she made gefilte fish. Like many old-world cooks, she didn’t have a recipe. She was a professionally trained guesser.

“Bubbelah, I grind carp, white fish, pike, mush them together with matzah meal and eggs, shape them round or into a log, like today. Broth, onions, fish skins, heads, bones, add carrot slices. Then boil them.” 

Can you tell me anything else? How much fish to use? How much matzah meal? How many eggs? How many carrots? How long do you boil them?”

“I don’t know, I just do it.”

I didn’t get specifics for making gefilte fish but I learned a lot about Grandma. What I thought would be a boring day turned out to be one of the most memorable days of my life. 

Carol J. Wechsler Blatter has contributed writings to the 2024 Birren Collection The Gift of A Long Life, Chaleur Press, Story Circle Network Anthologies, Writing it Real anthologies, The Jewish Writing Project, the Jewish Literary Journal, True Stories Well Told, Writer’s Advice, New Millennium Writings, and 101words.org. She has contributed poems to Story Circle Network’s Real Women Write, Growing/ Older, and Covenant of the Generations by Women of Reform Judaism. Ms. Blatter is a recently retired psychotherapist, she is also a wife, mother, and grandmother of her very special granddaughter who already writes her own stories  

2 Comments

Filed under American Jewry, Family history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism, Passover

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

April 15, 2024 · 7:30 am

The Gift

by Cynthia Bernard (Half Moon Bay, CA)

Aunty Anne always wore 
lovely dresses with long sleeves,
even on that sunny day in August
when I sat next to her
at the picnic table,
soft yellow silk slid up her arm,
and I glimpsed the numbers.

What’s that, Aunty Ann?

Oh, just something for grown-ups,
Shayne meydele, she said,
gentle fingers kissing my cheeks.
Go and play.

And so she blessed me
with a few more years 
of childhood

Until that day in fourth grade,
somewhere on the cusp between 
only myself and the larger world,
when I learned about
the six million
and began my search for understanding—
which, of course, 
I have never found.

Cynthia Bernard is an Ashkenazi Jewish woman in her early seventies who is finding her voice as a poet after many years of silence. A long-time classroom teacher and a spiritual mentor, she lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 25 miles south of San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Multiplicity Magazine, Heimat Review, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Journal of Radical Wonder, The Bluebird Word, Passager, Persimmon Tree, Verse-Virtual, and elsewhere.

Note:  This poem was first published on December 11, 2023 in Ritualwell and is reprinted here with permission of the author.

Leave a comment

Filed under American Jewry, Family history, history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism, poetry

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 8, 2024 · 7:00 am

Greeting

by Carol Grannick (Evanston, IL)

How could I have known on the night I began

tilting then circling my hands in front of my eyes 

pulling in light like a warm breeze at twenty below

welcoming Shabbat in with the light for the first time 

with gifts of candles, prayer, song, bread, wine

and my wondering, wandering self peeking 

as an explorer into something new undiscovered 

and yet there for generations before me 

Others knew the right place to go, where

to seek light and they guaranteed it was there

Trusting in this, I placed the candles just so

turned in prayer and welcomed Shabbat

and surprising me like a sudden embrace

she reached her arms out as if she 

had waited patiently, lovingly all these years

ancient and new, unmoved by my disregard. 

Carol Coven Grannick is a poet and children’s author whose middle grade novel in verse, REENI’S TURN (check out the wonderful trailer from Filmelodic and nice reviews!), debuted from Regal House Publishing in 2020. Her poetry for adults has appeared in Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Jewish Writing Project, NI+ Holocaust Memorial Issue, Bloom, Bluebird Word, Ground, The Birmingham Arts Journal, Capsule Stories, West Texas Review, Silver Birch Press, The Lake, and more. Her children’s fiction and poetry appeared/is forthcoming in Cricket, Ladybug, Babybug, Highlights, Hello, Paddler, and The Dirigible Balloon. There is rarely a day when she does not write in order to hold on to the treasure and meaning of being alive in this world.

Leave a comment

Filed under American Jewry, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism, poetry

Tagged as , , , ,

April 1, 2024 · 7:30 am

From The Old Country, Through Cuba, To The Family Duplex, Montreal

by Lisa Miller ( Lexington, KY)

For Ma—my great-grandmother

A five-year-old girl

schmaltz & gribenes, cholent, gefilte fish, chicken soup & matzah balls, tongue, chopped liver, latkes, stuffed cabbage, kishke, kasha, farfel, plátano frito, arroz con pollo, fricasé de pollo, ensalada Cubana—

The hands that smell like garlic, dill, parsley, parsnips, saffron—the kitchen—

soft, warmed, sheltering, applauding, soothing 

comfort—

Always Home.  

Lisa M. Miller is an inclusive mind-body health specialist. She facilitates therapeutic arts workshops that call in deep healing and synchronicity—a compass for meaning, intuition, and well-being. She’s an empty nester from Canada, living in Kentucky, married to her 1986 Jewish summer camp sweetheart. Her newest book, Woe & Awe, will be published by Accents (Spring 2024) Her podcast is called: The Women’s Well. Follow Lisa on Instagram: @LisaMillerBeautifulDay

1 Comment

Filed under American Jewry, Family history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism, poetry

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

March 18, 2024 · 7:30 am

After Lighting

by Jane Schulman (New York, NY)

Nana’s tale, Brooklyn, 1907 

My brothers stood on Mama’s right. 

I hung on her left, fistfuls of skirt  

clenched in my hand.   

Mama struck a match,  

lit the candles, chanted the blessing 

to welcome the Sabbath.  

The sound of keys in the lock  

cut the silence.   

Papa stomped into the room:  

Blow out those candles.  America’s no place  

for your bubbe’s mishegas. 

The mouths of my brothers rounded 

in fear.  They smelled the fight 

coming.

 

Candlesticks knocked to the floor.   

Flames stamped out.  

Then and again and again.  

    *       *        *        *        *        * 

Astoria, Queens   1983 

A Friday afternoon in May,  

Nana and I set the table  

with bread and wine  

and my best china.  

I light two candles after  

she lights hers. We cover  

our eyes and murmur  

the blessing, stumbling  

over the Hebrew words.  The taste  

of prayer new to our tongues. 

Jane Schulman is a poet and fiction writer. She works as a speech pathologist with children with autism and cognitive delays.  Jane published her first book of poetry, Where Blue Is Blue, with Main Street Rag in October, 2020.  Her writing has appeared widely online and in print. She was a finalist for the Morton Marr Prize at Southwest Review.     

1 Comment

Filed under American Jewry, Brooklyn Jews, Family history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism, poetry

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

March 11, 2024 · 7:00 am

My Grandmother’s Hands

by Arlene Geller (East Petersburg, PA)

Her hands, swollen with arthritis, don’t fail her
as she plucks the chicken for the Sabbath meal
kneads the dough for her must-be-dunked poppy seed cookies

Her hands once supple worked her Singer machine
                          (prized possession)
sewed my clothes, homemade creations 
marked her status as a working-class immigrant

She and my grandfather
tailors from the old country
opened a store and plied their craft

The old Singer humming along
sustaining their livelihood
as they raised a family, three sons and a daughter 
                          (prized possessions)

Fulfilling their Russian dreams of an American life
now envisioned through the rolling fog
as they drew nearer to Ellis Island
the Statue of Liberty waving them in

Poet/lyricist Arlene Geller has been fascinated with words from a young age. Two poetry collections, The Earth Claims Her and Hear Her Voice, were published in 2023 by Plan B Press and Kelsay Books, respectively. Her poetry has also appeared in Tiny Seed Journal, Tiferet Journal, The Jewish Writing Project, White Enso, and other literary journals and anthologies. Collaborations with composers include commissioned lyrics, such as River Song, featured in the world premiere of I Rise: Women in Song at Lehigh University and since performed in numerous national and international locations. Learn more at arlenegeller.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under American Jewry, Family history, history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism, poetry, Russian Jewry

Tagged as , , , , , ,

March 4, 2024 · 7:30 am

Sestina On Changing The Name                                         

by Roseanne Freed (Burbank, CA)

for my Dad. Maishie.     

When my Dad left Israel at nineteen he changed his name

and I was his link to the past as I look like his mother.

This is Dad’s story from the grave:  Born in bed—

no need for details—we never had enough food

to eat. Like beggars we slept in the clothes

we wore all day. A religious man Tevya, my father

had nothing. God forgive me if I don’t praise my father—

but he never achieved anything, and I had to share his name.

I didn’t know people slept in special clothes

called pajamas—we only survived because of my mother’s

tenacity. Always hungry, you feel cold without food 

and Jerusalem is cold in winter—a thin blanket on the bed

to cover us, we four children sharing the one bed.

His only job to sit with the dead, my father

earned a pittance, so our stomachs cried for food.  

I’m the first one to change the name.

Cleaning houses of the rich my mother

worked for a dentist’s wife who gave us clothes.

We didn’t go to the dentist but wore his childrens’ clothes.

No furniture in our room except the two beds—

one night, falling asleep on top of the baby, my mother 

smothered it. If he got carpentry work at night my father

bought us herring and pita. I didn’t want his name

when he’d wake us up after midnight to eat the food,

but not all of it — god forbid—we had to save food

for tomorrow. We were shnorers, our clothes

full of patches, I couldn’t wait to change the name.

My poor mother, I never saw her resting in bed.

I had to go work at thirteen because my father 

couldn’t feed us. On special holidays my mother 

cooked meatballs, oy such delicious rissoles my mother 

made, my mouth waters to think of the food.

After I emigrated I celebrated my freedom from my father 

and his religion with bacon on Yom Kippur. I bought clothes

for the trip —a double-breasted suit. I never went to bed

hungry after I moved to South Africa and changed my name.

When I married at thirty I had a successful factory making hospital beds.

My four children and their mother always had food and clothes, 

and clean sheets. I hope my kids aren’t ashamed of their father’s name.

Roseanne Freed grew up in apartheid South Africa and now lives in Los Angeles, where she takes inner-city school children hiking in the Santa Monica mountains. A Best of the Net nominee, her poems have appeared in MacQueens Quinterly, ONE ART, Naugatuck River Review, Silver Birch Press and Verse-Virtual among others.  

Leave a comment

Filed under Family history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Judaism, poetry

Tagged as , , , , , , ,