Category Archives: American Jewry

August 3, 2026 · 7:30 am

Encounters with Yiddish: The Old in the New World

By Ronald H. Linden (Pittsburgh, PA)

Among the basic tools we carry with us in life are our personal language experiences; what we heard first as infants, conversations around the dinner table, the cacophony of our larger communities. If we pay attention and are good mimics, we can connect with people outside and inside our families and homes using the building blocks of these languages.

But language does more than allow our comprehension and expression; it marks us and links us to our past—to “the old country” and the old places. This is especially true if we were fortunate enough to have experienced an environment suffused with Yiddish, which Leo Rosten called “The language of the heart.” 

For most of us Yiddish flowed from our grandparents.  They brought this language with them from all over Europe and the Middle East.  But their intermediaries—our own parents—often walled us out of their conversations, preferring to keep an adults-only method of kibbitzing with the rest of the mishpochah.

Still, the expressive power of Yiddish could not really be contained; for example, when a bubbe held a grandchild’s face in her hands and gushed over a shayna punim.  Or when that same bubbe wondered why you were leaving so soon, “What, have you got shpilkes?” 

For my father and many of his generation, the first born here, Yiddish was their mama loshen. It was the language of mother and home certainly, but it was to be confined there as part of a fierce struggle to be as American as possible, to be part of the new–not the old–world. And he succeeded.

Yet the staying power of his Yiddish, relegated to a minor chord, never left him. I had the opportunity to see this close up in an ironic and surprising way.  Near the end of the Cold War my family and I were living in Munich, Germany as I had a position with Radio Free Europe. My parents came to visit. My father had fought in World War II and my mother had lost her first husband in the Battle of the Bulge. For these reasons and because they were Jews, a trip to Germany was not a casual undertaking.  My father demonstrably stomped the ground in Hitler’s favorite city to announce his—and our people’s–presence.

An outgoing person with Yiddish in his pocket, my father wanted to communicate with the Germans, but he was understandably hesitant.  Unexpectedly—and ironically–the opportunity came through a casual meeting with a policeman on the street. The officer’s youth, openness and interest in America pushed the right buttons. In response, and perhaps unexpectedly even to him, my father’s ancestral language rose to the surface. The distance between them closed. I could see his excitement grow in the exchange and for the first time in ages, I saw him use expressions and deploy the language’s natural rhythm. In this most unlikely of places he made a cross-generational, cross-cultural human connection. Yiddish made that possible. (As a bonus for me, learning German, I was now included.)

 I learned from this encounter that your mama loshen is always with you. I saw this even more vividly some years later with my wife’s grandmother, whom everyone called, of course, Bubbe.  As an orphan from a tiny shtetl in the Russian empire, she was matched to an older man, whose wife had died, and moved to western Ukraine. With her husband soon gone to America, she and her family of four children were engulfed by WWI, the Russian Revolution and Civil War. She survived by trading across fluid territories and borders, adding Russian and Polish to her native Yiddish.

When her moment came to flee with her family, she and thousands of Jews took up residence in the new state of Poland and soon after left for America. Still unable to read or write, she nevertheless learned English and embraced her new country with deep gratitude. More than her businessman husband, she plunged into American life; she shopped, went to the movies and travelled. The orphan girl from a village without electricity who once spoke only Yiddish watched a man land on the moon on American television in English.

Then the mama loshen, which had never really left her, returned. As she grew older, Bubbe began to converse more and more in Yiddish only.  Her physical infirmities grew but her brain remained sharp—it just reverted back to its earliest tools for communication.  Even when she thought she was speaking English, out came Yiddish.  By then we had gained enough understanding of Yiddish ourselves to be with her and never let on. We entered her world as she was leaving it. The power of Yiddish was displayed once again in the form of a precious gift: the chance to create in America a meaningful and sweet goodbye to the orphan girl from the shtetl.

Ronald H. Linden is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pittsburgh, where he directed the Center for European Studies and the Center for Russian and East European Studies. He served as Director of Research for Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany during the extraordinary changes ending the Cold War in Europe. In addition to his scholarly publications and international commentary (see his professional profile here) Ron has authored essays on “The Night The Berlin Wall Came Down,”; “Changing the rules — in life as in baseball”; “Finding Boba Fett: The Pandemic Leaves a Gift,” “The New Pogroms.”

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July 27, 2026 · 7:30 am

A Kugel Story

by Hillary Powell (Brooklyn, NY)

We crowded into a small apartment in Brooklyn after my mother’s second cousin’s funeral. My maternal grandmother was one of six children and maternal grandfather one of five. In many ways this childhood memory blurred into others, of crowding into living rooms across the tri-state area for reunions and gatherings, often meeting cousins I never met before and never saw again. 

But this shiva (circa 1980) stood out. The mood was somber and Rose, my widowed second cousin, looked wrung out, her face gray, her eyes rimmed red. Then cousin Susan brought out an unusually delicious golden, sweet noodle kugel. I recall Rose grieving, processing her loss openly, “I am just so sad Richard didn’t get here in time to say goodbye to his father.” Yet with each bite of kugel, her eyes lit up. “Have you tasted this noodle kugel?” she asked the mourners. We all began to try the kugel, to discuss how extraordinary it was, finding a bit of joy on that sad day. 

Nearly half a century later, after the unimaginable events during the weekend of December 13th, 2025, it seemed necessary to bake and share the most comforting of Jewish comfort foods. Over this weekend, tragic events unfolded in less than 48 hours: shootings at Brown University and MIT; an antisemitic terrorist attack at a Chanukah celebration on Bondi Beach in Australia; and the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner, likely by their own son. All of these events rattled me, even as these acts of violence have become shockingly commonplace. 

This time, one event was too close for the numbness to settle in quickly as it often does after the initial news flash.  My niece is a sophomore at Brown and hid in her dorm closet during the shooting. My sister called me a few days later. After rushing to get my niece safely off campus and home, she finally broke down, her emotions bursting the dam she had built to stay strong for her daughter. I did my best to soothe, reassure, and focus on the unfathomable idea that my niece’s survival was some kind of good luck. 

I couldn’t do much to ease all this pain, but I needed to do something. “I’m making kugel!” I announced. My children, accustomed to my mom’s fluffy but raisin-filled kugel, had a request, “No raisins, please.” I wanted the kugel to be light and fluffy the way my mother makes it. But I was also determined to capture the power of that legendary kugel from so many years ago.

What made the kugel from my second cousin’s shiva extra delicious? Those details were murky. Was it a streusel topping? Was it something else? In any event, I thought a streusel topping would be a good sweet substitute for raisins.  

Searching online, I found a kugel recipe with a streusel topping, but the recipe called for cream cheese which I know my mom doesn’t use for her fluffy kugel, and it needed to be fluffy — a light-hearted, flexible, resilient kugel! I worried the cream cheese would make it too dense. I asked my mom for a recipe, but she said she bakes it from memory and changes it every time, which is exactly what a Jewish grandma would say. 

I found a recipe with the ingredients my mother uses—many eggs, sour cream and cottage cheese. I combined the streusel topping recipe with the fluffy kugel recipe, baked a sample kugel and assessed. I took that first bite and determined it was not the Platonic noodle kugel I had imagined. It didn’t quite match the memory I had of that perfect kugel from years ago. But I also began to recognize that perhaps this quest was quixotic. I was attempting to recreate a feeling as much as a flavor, and I decided this kugel was pretty delicious and close enough.

In the end, I baked four noodle kugels for four holiday events over two days, coping with the tragedies of the week, of the year, of this era. The whisk of the mixer made yolks disappear into a rich custard that then coated bouncy noodles. My spirits were buoyed momentarily as the sweet “incense” rose like a prayer, as the casseroles stopped trembling and finally set, transformed by a warm oven into a delicate but steady soufflé. I stacked them in the refrigerator, leaving no room for regular, everyday groceries. It was time to share them.

At one friend’s party, an Italian woman who had never tasted kugel asked the host, “What is this crack casserole?” People hovered over the last piece, and it was eventually divided up. Introducing a tradition to those unfamiliar with Jewish culture felt especially gratifying in this challenging moment for Jews. 

There were leftovers from the second party, and my friend brought them to her own cousin, who has a chronic illness and almost no appetite. But just as I recalled from years ago, the kugel was somehow restorative. It was the one food my friend’s cousin could enjoy and she requested the recipe so her caregiver could bake it the next day.

One kugel was for a Chanukah gathering with my sister’s family. I gave two servings each to my niece and my sister like it was medicine.

There are no comfort foods that can completely heal us all right now, that can bring back lives that have been lost and ease all our pain. A kugel is not magic; it cannot make cohesive what is fractured. But it is not nothing either to fill our homes with the scent of butter and cinnamon, watch brown sugar toppings caramelize and bubble, and share this decadent holiday treat with our loved ones, friends, and even strangers. Mixed together, eggs, soft cheese, butter, sour cream, sugar, salt, cinnamon, vanilla, and springy noodles bond gracefully and gently, becoming something better than each ingredient alone.

Hillary Powell works as a grant manager for Covenant House New Jersey, a nonprofit that serves youth experiencing homelessness. She is also a singer-songwriter. HIllary lives with her husband and two kids in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her website can be found at this link: https://www.hillarypowellmusic.com/. 

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July 20, 2026 · 7:30 am

Immigrants All

by Miriam Bassuk (Seattle, WA)

I come from wandering Jews,

merchants, lawyers, teachers,

grocery store owners.

I come from those who rode steerage

slept above deck in turbulent seas,

walked miles as young teens

to depart from Bremen, Germany

leaving all they knew

speaking Russian, Polish, Yiddish,

carrying only brass candlesticks

and a few coins.

Born from a mother

who labored long,

the only one in her family

to be born in a hospital.

All the others were born at home,

assisted by midwives.

I remember flowers, bloated

peonies on dining room wallpaper,

lilacs and lilies of the valley

gathered in large bouquets

to grace our table. I remember

my mother as a lion,

my champion at school.

When teachers were difficult,

she sang for me.

Sang sweet songs

in a kitchen, her haven,

spoke Yiddish to her father,

a frequent visitor. I remember

hot nights, looking out 

my bedroom window.

Scents of honeysuckle and roses,

haunting train whistle,

far in the distance.

How we might stray far from our roots,

escape the cloistered life

of segregated neighborhoods,

only to return, imprinted

on some cellular level

by those early risk takers.

Miriam Bassuk’s poems have appeared in Snapdragon, Borderless, 3 Elements Review, and The Jewish Writing Project. She was one of the featured poets in WA 129 project sponsored by Tod Marshall, the Washington State poet laureate. As an avid poet, she has been charting the journey of living in these uncertain times.

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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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