July 13, 2026 · 5:30 am

The Proof is in the Pilaf

by Jahan Khan (Melbourne, Australia)

It’s sometime in Autumn, 2023, and I’m at Jeffery’s Bookshop, utterly moved to tears by a cookbook of all things. The shop attendant checks in on me, and I look at her and say, “My family had these recipes, just like these… I just wasn’t expecting to find them here.”  I then turned the book over to look at the hefty price tag of $65.  

“Oh, this is quite expensive,” I say with a sombre tone, moved by discovering one of my mum’s favorite recipes for pilaf, a Central Asian rice dish that is slow cooked in meat broth.  

She quickly responded “Well, yes, but! It looks like there’s a real connection for you here.” 

“Yeah alright… this is really special,” I say in a somewhat affirmative tone.  

The book was the 25th anniversary edition of the cookbook The Book of Jewish Food. The main title itself is quite ordinary, but what makes it stand out from any other Jewish cookbook is its subtitle: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day. The author, Claudia Roden, is a Jew of Middle Eastern background, and what began as a project to document recipes of her own family and community morphed into an ambitious globe-trotting culinary adventure. She didn’t just capture the recipes, but she captured histories, stories, and traditions of lesser-known Jewish communities in the Diaspora, communities that have existed in the unlikeliest corners of the globe, everywhere from Africa to China.   

Of interest to me personally was the story of the Jews of India. The three Jewish communities of India each have their origin story, some even tracing their lineage back to biblical narratives. These stories, at times mythological in nature, were passed down like treasured inheritance. A more straightforward (and grounded) explanation, in terms of how Jews even made it to India and the multiple migrations in the centuries that followed, is quite simple: the Silk Road.

The Silk Road provided a connection to the world beyond and allowed the exchange of goods, knowledge, and innovations. Importantly, it gave people and communities an opportunity to carve out new homes and start over. For the Jewish people, this was the road they hoped would lead them to finding new homes and identities in a world that didn’t want them, or at best, tolerated their existence conditionally.  

Among them were the Jews living in Persia (i.e. Babylon) where significant Jewish expression, writing, and religious tradition emerged. The Jewish-Persian connection runs deep, from foundational biblical narratives to contemporary cultural norms and practices. Today this once rich legacy barely survives as a marginalized and persecuted minority in places like Tehran, but in the ancient world the Jews there were once a formidable presence. 

Long before the recent persecutions in Tehran, the experience of Jews walking on eggshells can be found in biblical accounts, most notably in the novella-style and almost theatrical story of Queen Esther. As attitudes towards Jews fluctuated like pharmaceutical stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, so too did the urgency of migrations out of Persia. These occurred several times during the 16-17th century, when Persian Jews travelled along the Silk Road and entered Northern India via Kashmir. The first time I heard any of this was as a child from my maternal grandfather. According to him and the traditions passed down to him from his forbearers, this was the community where we came from.  

My late maternal grandfather was the first source of my Jewish education. He knew everything from the people to the customs, and how it all traced to the present day, and he was quite dedicated to keeping these stories alive and would repeat them often with pride. Since his passing, his children distanced themselves from their connection to ancient Israel via Babylon, and this is largely due to political tensions and deep antisemitism which escalates to this day. It took me a long time to find the motivation, and I dare say courage, to write any of it down.  

Even though my family distanced themselves from the stories, the habits handed down from ancient times persist. Shortly after I was born, my mother had me circumcised at 16 days young (the Jewish custom is 8 days) where most other families in that region would wait until the boy was around 10 years of age. Then there was the food. Many of our recipes avoided mixing meat and dairy and even cautioned against shellfish. These could be coincidences, but to me it always felt like remnants of the people we once were, where customs had been passed down not as religious dogma but simply as family norms in a multi-generational game of Chinese Whispers.  

In my mother’s household it felt like it was pilaf all day, every day. As a child, my sisters and I would absolutely loathe this dish. Decades later as an adult I can appreciate it more, but it’s still not a meal I would go out of my way to eat. Still, the nostalgia is there, and the sheer frequency and tendency with which we consumed it in our household was unlike any other family, and so to find it featured so prominently in Claudia Roden’s book as a staple of Indian/Persian Jewish diet really brought the many fragmented pieces of my identity together. (In the same cookbook I discovered a hideous lentil rice dish that was often prepared in my home to remedy an upset stomach, and Roden’s book mentioned the exact same thing.) 

***

On August 17, 2024, I attended an event at Glen Eira Town Hall (Melbourne, Victoria) called Of Ghosts and Golems, an opening night gala to launch Melbourne Jewish Book Week. It was Marina Benjamin’s story (explored in her memoir The Last Days in Babylon) that moved me in a way I wasn’t prepared for.  

Marina Benjamin talked about her Iraqi Jewish family, and how it was difficult for her to connect with her Iraqi heritage for most of her life. There were certain mannerisms and behaviors in her family that troubled her during her childhood in London, and which made her feel less normal among her European Jewish peers. Speaking now with a deeper appreciation of her roots and context, she was able to come to terms with what it all meant even if it didn’t fully extinguish the hurt her inner child continues to carry.  

She spoke about her family’s tendency to downplay achievements and importance, which hit close to home for me, too. My family was much the same way with me, to the point where even to this day I carry this lingering wound of feeling invisible in most settings; to be my own harshest critic, and to downplay or outright hide my achievements. I still struggle to advocate for myself. It’s a deeply rooted conditioning from childhood, but as it turns out for both me and Marina, it was a deeply rooted custom going back generations… centuries even.  

Marina explained in her talk that these behaviors came from a superstition about the evil eye. For Jews living in the diaspora, especially those who were at the mercy of the fluctuating tolerances to their existence, the obsession with this evil eye was more about survival. To not be seen and heard meant they wouldn’t draw attention as a marginalized and persecuted minority. 

Hearing her expound all her trauma in its rich historical context, I thought to myself “Oh… so that’s why it was like that at home.” It felt like a moment of closure, a moment of validation, and the beginning of a long-overdue healing journey.  

I feel now like my Jewish story is still unfolding and yet, whenever I least expect it, I find new clues and evidence for all the fuzzy fragments. It is in these moments that the fog lifts a little and the compartmentalized memories become a tangible part of my Jewish identity. Advances in both historical research and DNA testing no doubt verified the journey of my ancestors, but it is my personal connection that feels more real than any cold piece of scientific fact. These were the stories that shaped my ancestors and the person I am today, driving my continued sense of wonder as I explore the world and the depths of my identity. True treasure is knowing who you are.

Jahan is a lecturer and writer. He has also been a video game critic for over 20 years. He loves to engage with the Melbourne Jewish community through cultural education and learning. You can learn more about Jahan by visiting his author website: https://virtuacritic.bearblog.dev 

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July 6, 2026 · 7:30 am

613 Bursting Seeds

by Lillian Farzan-Kashani (Santa Monica, CA)

Here I am

Watering the memories

Of reunions & separations

Love and grief

And surely all in between

While some have been able to exhale

Following October 8th

I fear it’s a facade

Tension lives here, still.

Some hostages freed, but horror flashes through me yet

On this walk, momentarily

I’m soothed by the sight of a pomegranate

Bursting with life above me

A living reminder of sacred potential. Multitudes of good.

And dare I say, of Peace

Soon, again, bewildered

I pass through olive branches

What an ironic symbol to bear

Knowing our neighbors are being terrorized

Amidst their ancient tradition of harvest

How is this OK?

How convenient for the self righteous ones on the hilltops to forget

Perhaps the most important out of the 613 seeds

We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. 

Far from it. They destroy themselves while tormenting others.

Time to overthrow.

Enough of the corrupt. The systemic injustice

Making a fool out of us.

Invest in the people on the ground

Return to tending to one another

Can you recall that far back?

My soul knows it’s true

We weren’t meant to live like this

Instead, we can invest in the land together

Holy, some say fruitful

An abundance, if we treat her right

In harmony

We can share the bounty, collectively contributing

We can come to rely on one another

Share the olives, the pomegranates

My mother had casually mentioned

Children are the fruit of love

And so we ought to protect

Even the smallest of seedlings

A whole universe therein

Writer by day and therapist by night–depending on the time zone–Lillian Farzan-Kashani is a bit of a digital nomad and much of her work as a poet is rooted in being a daughter of Iranian Jewish immigrants. Relatively new to all of this, her recent and forthcoming work can be found in Songs of the Earth by the LA Public Library (2024), Verse Virtual (July and November 2025), and Silver Birch Press (July and August 2025). Read more about her professional and creative pursuits at https://www.lillianfarzan.com/

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June 29, 2026 · 7:30 am

It’s Been My Experience

by Herbert Munshine (Great Neck, NY)


It’s been my experience 

that various congregations 

often feel they are the true Jews

and look down upon other divisions

of Judaism as not being holy enough. 

I find this disappointing, given 

the abundance of non-Jews

throughout history — Romans, 

Egyptians, Russians, and so many 

Europeans (from the Inquisition to 

the Holocaust) who have unjustifiably 

hated Jews of any and of all

denominations.

What I am saying is that

we have had enough enemies 

without attacking each other’s version

of our faith and the practices 

we share in our altered ways.

Why can’t we respect and cherish

each other’s version of Judaism 

instead of tearing it down

and learn to live with the varieties 

of Judaism, not just one?

Isn’t G-d’s synagogue large enough 

for all of us?

Herbert Munshine grew up in the Bronx and graduated from C.C.N.Y. with both a B.S. in Education and a Master’s Degree in English. You can find his baseball poetry on Baseball Bard where he has had more than 100 poems published, and where he was recently inducted into that site’s Hall of Fame. He lives with his wife in Great Neck, NY.

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June 22, 2026 · 7:30 am

The Pantheon of Brides and Grooms

by Barbara Krasner (Somerset, NJ)

On the marble and wood credenza I inherited

from my mother and Melray’s mid-century

modern furniture I’ve arranged an altar

of the wedding portraits of my ancestors: 

two sets of grandparents, one set 

of paternal grandparents. There are 

no existing photographs of the other grandparents—

either because they believed photography

would steal their souls or their images

drowned in vulnerable cardboard boxes

placed too close to the basement boiler.

One framed photo is of me, walking down

the aisle with my son at his wedding.

There is no wedding portrait of me.

Even in my mother’s dining room,

a gallery of wedding portraits 

of my sisters and their grooms,

mine was removed after the divorce,

subject to basement floods thereafter.

This curation at the altar reminds me

of where I came from, a reminder

of Yahrzeit candles to light

according to the dates I’ve registered

with HebCal, a reminder I’m alone

and yet not alone.

Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a PhD in Holocaust & Genocide Studies (HGS) from Gratz College, where she teaches in the HGS graduate programs. The author of two poetry chapbooks and three novels in verse, her work has appeared in Jewish Literary Journal, Tiferet, Minyan, Jewishfiction.net, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She serves as Director, Mercer County (NJ) Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Education Center.

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June 15, 2026 · 7:30 am

Goodbye Again, Aunt Lens

by Elliot Zashin (Merrillville, IN)

In my 50s, I was still receiving birthday cards from my Aunt Lens, one of my father’s sisters. Like clockwork, I knew the card would arrive on time, and although I thought there might be some age when she would decide I was too old for birthday cards, that day never came. I realize now that in some way I was still the little boy she used to babysit or the preadolescent stamp collector who came to visit at her home and talk about stamps with my uncle, who was an expert amateur philatelist. So for her, I’d never be too old to get a birthday card.

I usually saw Aunt Lens (her self-adopted nickname for Lena) once a year in the summer, when I was in NYC to study at the Jewish Theological Seminary. My Uncle Bernard, who lived near Aunt Lens, picked her up and brought her to his home, giving me an opportunity to chat with both Aunt Lens and her sister, my Aunt Mollie. We always went to the same local Chinese restaurant and ordered the same dishes, leaving with the same doggie bags. We weren’t keeping kosher, but it was still a ritual observance.

Aunt Lens was always pleased to see me; never having had any children of her own, she had a special fondness for the daughters and sons of her five siblings. Aunt Lens was a short woman, a little on the plump side, but always neatly attired and coiffed. She had an alert manner but generally didn’t have a lot to say during these visits. In her later years, her life was probably rather routine and even monotonous, so she may not have felt inclined to expand on her daily doings. Twice widowed after being married to demanding husbands, she never had a chance to fulfill her own capabilities, which, I’d heard from my mother, were considerable. My father’s family was very traditional, very patriarchal, and whatever her youthful ambitions might have been, Aunt Lens had loyally fulfilled her role in the family.

Even as her health became more delicate, she never complained in my presence. I knew that my father’s sisters were very close, and throughout their adult years, they called each other every day. This was part of who they were and perhaps gave them a chance to vent a bit. The family didn’t believe in airing its problems openly. When Uncle Bernard called to say Aunt Lens had died, I felt that I should attend the funeral, but despite some pangs of conscience I let the inconvenience of making a quick trip to NYC be my excuse for staying home. The next summer when I visited with him and Aunt Mollie, he described the funeral:

Because Aunt Lens hadn’t been a member of a synagogue for many years, Uncle Bernard had recruited Rabbi Ploni (not his real name, but the term the Talmudists used to describe an anonymous rabbi) to conduct the burial service. He was one of the itinerant rabbis who could be found through the cemetery on short notice. Shortly before the graveside ceremony, my grieving relatives briefed him about who Aunt Lens was and why they loved her. Unbeknownst to them, Rabbi Ploni was juggling a number of services at the same time. Funerals didn’t necessarily occur evenly over the weeks and months, but these gigs were how Rabbi Ploni made his living; he couldn’t afford to pass one up just because scheduling was tight.

The little group of my two aunts, one uncle, and several nieces gathered near the open grave and waited for Rabbi Ploni to arrive. The usual graveside ceremony for a Jewish burial is a rather simple matter: a psalm or two, el mole rachamim, kaddish, and of course the eulogy. Jews are rather matter of fact about death and burial. We don’t make an elaborate ritual of returning “dust to dust.” My relatives weren’t expecting any surprises; they’d been through this before with other members of the family, and Rabbi Ploni seemed to know the drill. But soon after he began his eulogy, my relatives became confused; before long it dawned on them that he wasn’t speaking of Aunt Lens but of some other woman, expatiating on her many virtues. My uncle, as the only male and the arranger of the funeral, had to interrupt and get Rabbi Ploni back on track. The rabbi was very embarrassed and apologetic but managed, after some shuffling, to find the correct remarks, complete the eulogy, and bring the ceremony to a close.

As I mentioned, my father’s family didn’t believe in making a fuss publicly; my grandparents and my aunts and uncles believed in decorum, not chutzpah. Even if it meant swallowing some gall, you did it because it wasn’t right to make a scene and embarrass others or yourself. So my relatives stumbled away from the graveside after saying kaddish and dropping clods of earth on the coffin, mumbling to each other and feeling very humiliated. Even though only members of the immediate family were there and they hadn’t been embarrassed in front of friends and acquaintances—what a shanda. My oldest cousin was furious and demanded that my uncle not give Rabbi Ploni the usual honorarium, but Uncle Bernard didn’t think this proper, despite his own feeling that the rabbi had screwed up badly. After all, this was how the rabbi made his living; you couldn’t deny a man his living.

Hearing my uncle’s story, I felt rather guilty that I hadn’t attended; as the most knowledgeable Jew in my extended family, perhaps I might have done something to stop Rabbi Ploni before he got so far off or at least done something to assuage my relatives’ discomfort and salvage the memory they would have of this event. At the same time, however, I was amused because this tale of the misbegotten eulogy had the wry comic quality of a Sholom Aleichem or Y.L. Peretz story, particularly with its ironic edge: Aunt Lens, a loyal and dedicated daughter to her parents, a wife who catered to her two husbands, a loving sister to her siblings, and a fond aunt to all her nieces and nephews, hadn’t complained that her life had been unfulfilling; she’d done all that was asked of her and more. And yet, as she departed this world, she couldn’t even get a proper eulogy. Why not? Because Rabbi Ploni, an honorable man struggling to make a living helping Jews in mourning, had taken on too much that day and gotten his note cards mixed up in the press of a busy afternoon. Life can play such tricks on us.

Some months later, Uncle Bernard called to tell me it would soon be time for the unveiling at Aunt Lens’s grave. My uncle could now smile a little at the memory of the funeral, but he still wasn’t about to hire another rabbi; one humiliation was enough. Thus he wanted to know what the appropriate prayers and rituals were. My first response was to say that I’d call my own rabbi and get back to him, but then I realized I had a chance to do tshuvah. “Uncle Bernard, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll come to NY and officiate—even for a funeral you don’t really need a rabbi, and certainly not for this kind of ceremony.”

And so my relatives had a second chance to say goodbye to Aunt Lens. As we gathered at the gravesite, I explained the significance of the unveiling ceremony: that Jews returned almost a year later to the scene of the funeral in order to close the formal mourning period as a community. I read a few of the customary unveiling psalms. Instead of a formal eulogy, I spoke of my memories of Aunt Lens and related a couple of humorous anecdotes about babysitting me that she’d enjoyed telling and retelling over the years.

Then I invited my relatives to share their memories—mostly the happy ones—and they responded in kind, almost eagerly. Each had a story or reflection: what a loyal sister she’d been, the daily telephone conversations, her cheerful tone (even when life might not have been), her unusual sense of style and keen eye for detail, her missed career as an interior decorator because of her dedication to being the bookkeeper for the family business. From the younger generation came memories of the birthday cards she never failed to send, her pride in their accomplishments, and her presence at all the family simchas.

Once we’d exhausted, for the time being, the memories that would live on, we said kaddish and grew quiet. As we walked away from the newly placed headstone, I saw smiles on my family’s tear-streaked faces. Aunt Lens had finally gotten her eulogy, and now her memory could be a blessing for us all.

Elliot Zashin was a Hillel director for 13 years at 2 different campuses, after being an academic (political science) for almost 13 years (without tenure). While working for Hillel, he took an MA at the Jewish Theological Seminary during summer breaks.  (That is where he learned about the title Rabbi Ploni, and much else.)  He comes by his sense of Jewishness through his father, who was a self-taught Bible interpreter, leading sessions at the Jewish Home for the Aged in Tucson after he retired from a business in NYC, and who wrote a lot about current events, political issues, and essays usually imbued with Mosaic ethics.

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June 8, 2026 · 7:30 am

A Convenient God?

By Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

In times of trouble and surprise

people are apt to exclaim,

“Oh, God,” or “OMG”

to the heavens,

as if God is at their

personal beck and call.

I, being an agnostic Jew,

would like to believe, and

have often used the same expressions.

In a recent and regular cardiology

visit, I was told to immediately

get to the emergency room.

“Good thing you came in today.”

the doctor said. “You could have died

within weeks.”

““Oh my God!” I said, reflexively.

“Thank God,” I added, and was soon

implanted with a brand new pacemaker.

Now and for the immediate future

I can believe in God and (surgery)

and sing a psalm of gratitude

and hope to dwell in the house 

of the Lord forever and ever.

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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June 1, 2026 · 7:30 am

A Challah Workaround

by Jan Berlfein Burns (Los Angeles, CA)

One day friends who lived in the San Fernando Valley invited our family to a Shabbat dinner. It was a lovely invitation, but their home was a major schlep from our house on the west side of LA, especially taking into consideration Friday night traffic. After discussing it with Rick we decided for the sake of a Shabbat dinner with friends, we could deal with the traffic for one night. We accepted their invitation, and I volunteered to bake and bring the homemade challah for which I was well known in some circles.

As Friday approached and I began to plan my day around challah prep, I realized that I had a problem. I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for Friday mid-day and I couldn’t change it. I needed at least four hours from start to finish for making challah and I’d have to start it after I got home from my doctor’s appointment. I didn’t think I’d have enough time to prep, let the dough rise twice and then bake the challah before driving to the valley for Shabbat dinner. 

As I considered my options, I felt like Moses and the Israelites in the Passover story when they were fleeing from Egypt. Though I wasn’t being pursued by Pharaoh, I still would be on the move and needed time and a warm place for my bread to rise. If I made the challah start to finish at home, by the time it came out of the oven the Friday night traffic northbound on the 405 freeway would’ve doubled my drive time to the valley and we’d be late for the kiddush and motzi (blessing of the challah) before Shabbat dinner. 

That’s when I had my aha moment. Like the Israelites, I’d bring my bread dough with me on my journey to the San Fernando Valley. Our family wouldn’t be walking or trying to escape on the back of a camel. We’d be driving in a comfortable car that had a floor heater. The car heater would provide a perfect warming environment for the second rise of my bread dough. The Israelites had no such luxuries. They ended up with matzo instead of challah.

Early that afternoon after I returned home from my doctor’s appointment, I began prepping my challah dough. Routine took over as I gathered all the ingredients needed to make bread. I filled a measuring cup with warm water, poured in a package of yeast with a dash of sugar and set it aside until the yeast began to bubble up. I melted two sticks of butter and put it aside to cool while I beat the eggs, sugar and salt in my mixer. 

Sometimes in the quiet of my kitchen while I prepare the dough for challah, I think about my grandmothers and great grandmothers and wonder what life was like for them when they prepared challah for Shabbat. Though I didn’t know much about life in the shtetl, I felt pretty certain that they never had to figure out how to transport dough from one shtetl to another as it was rising. I admit, mine was a modern day, first world problem. And I thought the car floor heater was a pretty ingenious, first world solution. 

As it was, neither of my grandmothers actually taught me how to bake challah. That I learned from a shiksa in college who had baked the most delicious challah following a recipe she got from a hippie cookbook. But still, I liked to conjure up romantic connections to my ancestors as I moved about in my kitchen. 

Rick and I left home with plenty of time so if we hit traffic the extended drive time would also give the braided loaf of challah sufficient time for the second required rise. 

The drive from West LA into the San Fernando Valley on a Friday afternoon on the 405 freeway was as expected, slow-going with bumper-to-bumper traffic. But on this afternoon it didn’t bother me. Unlike my ancient forebears we had the heater turned up high in our comfortable car. We’d brought our bread dough along for the ride and it was rising comfortably covered on a baking sheet resting on the floor of the car. Lucky us, we wouldn’t have to settle for matzo. 

Millenia of challenges and conflicts taught our people to be adaptable while still holding fast to our core beliefs and traditions. In a nod to that sensibility, I had devised a creative challah-rising workaround. By the time we arrived at our friends’ home the dough was ready to go directly into the oven for its final baking. When the other guests arrived, our hostess presented, fresh out of the oven, my beautifully baked and braided challah. Gathering around the dining room table, we joined together to recite the blessing over the challah, a prayer in which we thank God, who brings forth bread from the earth. In this moment, together we connected to our lineage and welcomed in Shabbat.

Jan Berlfein Burns began writing in her sixties and is the author of the book, March of the Living ~ Our Stories, a collection of war time stories from Holocaust survivors. She has also had her own memoir stories published in Good Printed Things, 34th Parallel, JLJ, Jewish Journal and read in theatre performance at The Braid. She is a photographer, genealogist and grandmother too. To learn more about Jan and her work, visit: https://rememberourstories.com

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May 25, 2026 · 7:30 am

Kindling Blessings Across Generations

by Lucy Marshall (Minneapolis MN)

I gave birth two months before Rosh Hashanah. I knew I wanted to find a meaningful way to welcome the new year and mark the major transformation that comes with adding a child to our family. My Google search for feminist Jewish rituals led me to Annabel Gottfried Cohen’s website “Pulling at Threads,” which details the rich history of keyver-mestn, grave measuring, and neshome likht, Soul Candles.

I learned that, in times of crisis and in the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, women used a string to measure the perimeter of a cemetery or loved one’s grave. This string was then utilized as a measurement for the wick of a new candle. The candles were donated to the synagogue and/or burned as part of a community gathering.

Women recited tkhines, or spontaneous prayers, while measuring, creating, and burning the Soul Candles. They asked their deceased relatives to intervene with God on their behalf for protection and blessings. This ritual has been practiced since the 1100’s or earlier, and it lives on today in contemporary Judaism with the practice of lighting memorial candles on Yom Kippur.

Reading this history, I felt my heart expand – this was it. I couldn’t stop looking at a photo of women in South Russia in 1906, walking at the border of a graveyard with a ball of string in their hands. They looked so familiar. I allowed myself to imagine, what if these women were my relatives, my ancestors?

My Bubbe was born in the same region about twenty years later, before fleeing to North America as a baby. My daughter is named after her. As I’ve stared into the face of my newborn the past two months, I’ve wondered how my Bubbe’s mother felt when making the choice to flee with a baby in tow. Certainly, she would have uttered her own spontaneous prayers for protection and blessing. How could she not?

I called my mom. My parents are good at a lot of things, and one thing they’re especially good at is measuring. They are both architects, and I have many memories of them measuring my college dorm room in New York, my dilapidating apartment in Wisconsin, and my first house in Minnesota to help me furnish the space. I asked if she and my dad would measure my grandparents’ gravesite near Chicago.

A week later, she texted me a video. My mom and dad walked the perimeter of my grandparents’ gravesite with a ball of string in their hands. It was an almost-perfect echo of the photo from over a hundred years ago. I listened to them recite the keyver-mestn thkine, and I could feel their words crossing over the boundary they’d just drawn between the living and the dead. 

My dad’s father doesn’t have a gravestone, so instead, he measured the perimeter of my grandfather’s desk, which has become a living memorial at the family architecture office. I wondered, what spaces in my life will become my legacy? What physical items and places will help my descendants feel close to me when I am no longer here?


My husband and I gathered our kiddos for the road trip to Illinois, and my brothers met us at my parents’ house. It felt right to be in a place filled with so many memories of my grandparents — cuddling on the pull-out couch, reading Isaac Bashevis Singer stories before bed, lighting the Shabbas candles together…

Using the toyter fodem, or “dead thread,” we measured the long wick for our Soul Candle. We took turns delicately wrapping colorful sheets of wax around the thick, folded lines. My son cut out shapes and added them as candle decor.

Next, we measured the living, drawing a line from our toes to our heads for another long wick. Even my newborn’s length, however small in comparison, was added into the measurement. This candle would be a lebedike likht, Living Candle, a plea to God to protect and bless those of us who are still alive into the new year. 

We read our original thkines while the two torch-like candles burned bright in the backyard. Each of us named the qualities — resilience, creativity, warmth — of our deceased loved ones that we wished to bless us in the new year. Then, we blessed each other, praying for one another’s growth, safety, and nourishment in 5786. 

Our closing prayer, cited directly from an 18th century Soul Candles tkhines collection, implored our loved ones to “arise from their graves and pray for us that this year be a good year.” It may sound like something out of Spooky Season, but in practice, it felt like an honest plea for connection — connection to the relatives we miss so dearly, to each other as a growing family, to a future that is uncertain, and to God.

Now, in the days following the ritual, I find myself surfacing new memories of my grandparents. I notice the ways my children cuddle on the couch with my mom and dad, their Bubbe and Zayde, to read stories before bed. As we gathered around the Shabbas table to light another pair of holy candles together, I was struck by the realization, again, of the almost-perfect echoes across generations. 

And what a blessing these echoes are, blurring the lines of time to provide us with ancestral love and protection, as we enter the new year in the sweetest, brightest way yet. 

Lucy Marshall is a queer Ashkenazi Jewish educator, facilitator, ritualist, and network weaver. Passionate about cultivating Jewish belonging, she is the Director of Community Services at Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Minneapolis. Lucy recently launched Neshama Mama, a new library of Jewish rituals for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Previously, Lucy directed the Rising Tide Open Waters Mikveh Network at Mayyim Hayyim, taught at Shir Tikvah Congregation, and served as the Twersky Education Fellow at the Jewish Women’s Archive. She has her MSW from the University of Minnesota and MA in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Lucy is a proud ema (mother) to her babies Lazer and Raizel on Dakota Land in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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May 22, 2026 · 7:30 am

I Am Here Because

by Claudine Nash (New York, NY)

once I was standing

at the foot of the mountain

with every Jewish soul

who ever lived,

with whoever touched

the words of Torah

with silver yad

or daily deed,

because

no matter my age,

everyday

can be Shavuot,

everyday a re-receiving,

a re-reading of the world

through an ethical lens,

everyday

a new connection

to the Eternal,

to generations lost

and present,

to an ancient and

enduring chain

to which I am

a part.

Claudine Nash is an award-winning poet who lives and writes in New York.  She has authored five poetry collections, most notably Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse (Blue Light Press, 2020) which won the 2020 Blue Light Book Award.  She has also edited three poetry collections and is a practicing psychologist. Widely published, her work has been nominated for the Pulitzer, Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes and briefly travelled through space as part of the Writers on the Moon time capsule of contemporary writing. 

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May 18, 2026 · 7:30 am

A mother’s worry

by Karen Scholl (Mount Vernon, OH)

My 24-year-old son Noah had been in Israel for less than three hours when I got this text:

Noah: Weird question, but do you want to know when or if I hear sirens or have to shelter?

He was attending a week-long conference with other Jewish educators to meet people directly impacted by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. More than a year into the conflict, Noah was there to listen to people’s stories, see what their lives are like today, and hear what they hope for the future.

When he first sent me a link to the program, I knew he had to go. It didn’t just align with his recently earned religious studies-political science degree, but his passion for connecting with people and trying to better understand their experiences and perspectives.

Was I worried about him visiting a country in the middle of a conflict? That was the question most people asked me. Not directly, of course. “Oh, Israel. Wow. Ok. That’s…uh, how do you feel about that?” 

Honestly, my biggest worries were about him remembering his passport and making all his flights.

I’d woken up that morning to a text that he landed in Tel Aviv, and then another one that said he “made it” through customs, which I hadn’t even thought to worry about. 

Noah: I definitely didn’t explain myself the best, but the customs official let me through. I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say and she was just like, “Have better answers next time.”

It’s not that I sit and worry, but just knowing he’s en route somewhere— especially if it’s across an ocean—ignites one more burner on the endless stovetop of my brain. So just the sight of a text that says On the ground, or even an airplane-landing emoji settles me. 

When Noah’s question came through I was in the middle of a client project—tweaking a headline about luxury travel to try and attract the most high-net-worth eyeballs. But now I needed to decide about sirens? My Noah burner reignited. Did I want to know—in the moment—if he was in danger? 

Me: So, like right now? Or is this hypothetical? 

Normally I know better than to use punctuation in texts to my kids. They taught me early on that, from me, periods and question marks seem “aggressive.” So I save them for essential communications—How high is your fever? This time I was tempted to respond purely in punctuation—one giant question mark.

Damn those three dots. Noah typed and re-typed, and re-typed again—from the other side of the globe. It felt like I’d just pulled the lever on a slot machine and was waiting for the reels to stop spinning, praying they’d land on Safe. Safe. Safe.

Noah: Not now. Though when I was in the taxi from the airport we sheltered under an overpass for a few minutes—but it was the first siren in Tel Aviv in weeks.


I really wanted to see his face or hear his voice in that moment, to know for-sure-for-sure that he was ok. 

Me: What does the siren mean exactly? 

Where I live in Ohio, tornado sirens are tested once a week, literally like clockwork. Hearing one just means it’s 12 p.m. on Wednesday, time to get up from my desk and make lunch.

Noah: I think it means there are rockets in the air, but I’m not 100% sure.

I had to look away from my phone. But there was my laptop screen, covered with the headlines about exclusive vacations.  

I couldn’t think, so I shut the lid the way I turn off the radio when I’m driving through a white-out. 

Behind my laptop sat a mug with the cold dregs of hibiscus tea and a pile of bills. I could hear the dogs snoring on the couch behind me, my husband on the phone in the next room. 

Most days, and for most of each day, this was my whole little world. My grown kids pop in and out of it, but they rarely transport me from it. Not like this.

Noah was barely one day into his trip and my stomach was braided like challah. Later, a friend who travels to Israel often mentioned that there’s an app that lets you know when and where sirens are going off. “I mean, I don’t have it,” she said, “but you can get it—if you want to know.”

I thought of my college roommate who moved to Israel and raised three kids in Tel Aviv. We lost touch years ago, but whenever I saw headlines about unrest there, I wondered how it affected her life. Was she still cooking dinner, asking her kids about school, reminding them to pick their clothes up off the floor like I was? Or was she holding onto them in a bomb shelter?

Me: Yes, please keep me posted about your safety ❤️

The rest of Noah’s week seemed to go well. Mid-way through, he casually mentioned a second incident with sirens, but glossed over it with stories about the courageous people he met and how it felt to walk through one of the kibbutzim that was attacked, seeing the scars and devastation, but also the hope.

After heavier days he’d send pics from feasts in quaint cafes or videos from the poets and musicians they met. He FaceTimed me once to show me the stray cats running around the roof of his hostel in Jerusalem and the sun rising over the Old City.

Right before his flight out of Tel Aviv, sirens went off for the third time. It was Friday night here when I started seeing Noah’s texts come through—first that he was sheltering in the airport bathroom, then that he got the all-clear.

Noah: I’m a little shaken just because I was asleep at the gate when the sirens first went off, but I’m fine. Met a nice Danish woman in the shelter. 

Noah (cont’d): Experiencing the sirens gave me a fuller grasp of all the emotions and feelings that are out there. I wanted to be in the center of the action and it comes with stuff like this.

Once he got back to his gate, he shared more. 

Noah: The most intense part was everyone running, like watching an entire terminal of people scatter, looking for shelters. I’ve seen it 3 times now, but it’s the look in people’s eyes when they realize oh, this is not a drill, we gotta start running.

Later that night I was better able to take stock of things. Noah was fine. His flight out of Tel Aviv had taken off as scheduled and he was likely stretched out across three seats in the back of the darkened plane, two-melatonin deep into a transcontinental nap. Relieved as I was that the drama of the week was over, I was thankful to be present for it, for him—even just via Wi-Fi. Now that he’s grown up and out on his own, I consider witnessing the events that continue to shape his life a real gift.

A few days later, Noah was sitting next to me on the couch, giving me the full download from his trip. He confirmed that not only did those sirens mean rockets were in the air, but once you hear them, you have 90 seconds to find shelter. Saving that last detail until he was within arm’s reach of me was a kindness.

“But I never really felt I was in danger,” he said. “And it’s going to sound weird, but hearing sirens right after I got there almost helped me get into the right headspace.”

“Everywhere we went, all week,” he added, “the first thing they did was show us where to go if the sirens go off. But that first day, in the taxi, I had no idea. The driver made eye contact with me in the rearview then floored it to an overpass. We sprinted to the bridge then stayed there with other motorists until we heard the all-clear.” 

The visual tore through me. I knew instantly that it would run on a loop in my head like a maddening jingle—the boy who I watched run up and down soccer fields for 14 years, running from a car to find safety in case a rocket broke through the Iron Dome. But I tried to hide it, because just like him, I want to be in the center of the action—his action—even when it’s scary—and it comes with stuff like this.

He must have sensed it, because Noah knew exactly where to end his story. “The weirdest part,” he said, “was getting back into the cab and seeing that the meter was still running.”

Karen Scholl has spent the last 25 years working as a copywriter and creative director. In between crafting web copy about laundry detergent, writing video scripts for financial institutions, and creating leadership articles for executives, she started writing about the relatable—and often humorous—moments of everyday life. Karen is the author of Surviving Soccer: A Chill Parent’s Guide to Carpools, Calendars, Coaches, Clubs, and Corner Kicks. Visit her website for more info: https://www.karenschollwriter.com

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