Category Archives: Family history

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.  

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January 29, 2024 · 7:30 am

Unwelcome and Unwanted

by Esther Erman (Mountain View, CA)

These days, now that most of them are gone, Holocaust survivors are honored and revered. But, from my experience, this was not always the case. 

I remember hearing that the mother of a famous Jewish writer became angry upon seeing a newsreel about Jews in Nazi labor and death camps. To whom did she direct her anger? The Nazis perpetrating the crimes? Alas not. Her ire went against the Jews who were – what? dumb enough? unlucky enough? to get caught and thrown into those places. 

I arrived in the United States as an infant, the child of my survivor parents who had lost everything in their place of origin, Poland. To say that we were unwelcome and unwanted is putting the case mildly.

Each of my parents was the sole survivor from their family of origin. To the best of my knowledge, most of my family perished at either Treblinka or Auschwitz. Both of my parents survived ghettos, labor camps, and Auschwitz. My mother also survived the death march and Bergen-Belsen. Calling my parents traumatized is also putting the case mildly. Despite this extreme trauma, they had the resilience to meet and marry in their DP (displaced persons) camp in Germany and produce a child (moi), born eighteen months after my mother was liberated from Bergen-Belsen.

At the  DP camp, my father managed to connect with an uncle in the United States who sponsored us to emigrate. By the time the requisite paperwork arrived, my mother was too pregnant to get on a ship. We had to wait until I was born and then able to lift my head – around age three months. 

By the time we managed to leave Germany, it was March of 1947. We set sail from Bremen on the Ernie Pyle. The crossing was so bad that my mother was sure we’d die in the middle of the ocean. I think that the Ernie Pyle was not the most seaworthy vessel. It foundered in the middle of the Atlantic, and we were towed back to Plymouth, England. There, for the seven days it took to get another ship for us to transfer to, we were not allowed to set foot on British soil. I expect it was a long seven days. 

We arrived in the United States on April 1, 1947. The uncle who’d sponsored our journey left us to fend for ourselves. He was a miserly bachelor who kept our existence a secret from a large branch of the family in Chicago. Perhaps they might have been more generous than he in providing support for my traumatized parents and me? His motivation for all his behavior remains an unsolvable mystery. It’s only been in recent years that the folks in Chicago learned that anyone from the family in Poland had survived the war.

Soon after our arrival, we settled on the Lower East Side. It was not trendy then. Given the post-war housing shortage, a building on Suffolk Street that had been slated for demolition was removed from the demolition list. Our first home was a rat-infested firetrap that had my crazy clean mother weeping with frustration daily. My father worked two jobs and was so rarely home, I cried when I saw this stranger. When my mother first attempted to tell an American Jewish woman about her experience in Auschwitz, the response was: “We suffered here also. Sugar was rationed.” Any wonder that my mother became depressed?

As I’ve come to reflect on my family’s experience, I can’t help wondering what might have been if my parents had had some support – any support – in those early days. Might it have made a difference? Or were they just too traumatized for there to be any meaningful help for them? I know that regular Americans were not thrilled to welcome us refugees. I think many Jewish Americans – maybe insecure themselves, maybe not long enough distanced from their arrival in the United States – did not welcome this reminder of where they had come from. 

I think about this feeling of being unwelcome and unwanted – which stayed with us as we made “successful” lives in the United States – when I hear about the plight of current refugees. Even for those more fortunate in their settlement than we were – the stigma of being a refugee lingers long after the initial trauma might reach some degree of resolution.

Like Rebecca, the heroine of her novel (Rebecca of Salerno: a Novel of Rogue Crusaders, a Jewish Female Physician, and a Murder), Esther Erman was a refugee. As an old “white” woman who speaks good English, she realizes she doesn’t typify the usual image of a refugee — but, despite the passage of time, the scars remain.The daughter of two survivors of the Shoah from Poland, Esther was born in Germany. A naturalized citizen, she early developed a passion for language. After receiving her BA and MA in French from different divisions of Rutgers University, she returned there for her doctorate in language education. She wrote her dissertation about Yiddish, her first language, which she had abandoned at age five. A multi-published author still trying to settle on her next big project, Esther now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband Lee. When they’re not traveling—especially to be with family in other parts of the United States and in England—she loves to bake, quilt, and add to her monumental book collection. Check her website for upcoming events: EstherErman.com.

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January 15, 2024 · 7:30 am

What My Zayda Taught Me About Tikkun Olam

By Jessica Ursell (Campania, Italy)

My beloved Zayda Nachman Libeskind’s life consisted of circumstances finding him in the unlikeliest of places, such as when he was escaping Poland on a rickety craft in the dead of night on the River Bug with two warring armies (the Soviets and the Germans) shooting at each other from opposite sides of the river, and later when he was framed, interrogated, and beaten by Soviet agents in the remote reaches of Kyrgyzstan because of a mysterious envelope he was forced to take with no knowledge of its contents, or when years later, during a ceremony pertaining to the Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Gerhard Schröder then federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (1998-2005) made a point of personally approaching my Zayda to express contrition for the horrors perpetrated against the Jews by the Nazi regime during the Shoah.

So when Nachman, a survivor of brutal Soviet gulags, shootouts, starvation and all manner of deprivation, traveled to the deep American South to participate in my official “pinning on” ceremony when I was promoted to the rank of Captain in the United States Air Force, it was another in a long line of the unlikeliest places for a man of his age and experience and, for me, the greatest honor of my life.

Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama was about the unlikeliest location conceivable for the youngest son of an unemployed carpenter born to an impoverished Jewish family in the industrial city of Łodz, Poland in 1909.

Jewish and proud, my Zayda actively sought to join the Polish army during the period between the first and second world wars because he was a patriot and wanted to resist the ugly Polish caricature of Jewish men as weak and cowardly.

His attempts to join the army were met with a considerable amount of skepticism by the Polish military authorities who rejected him multiple times due to his being underweight (read Jewish).  But Nachman was determined and kept applying until finally the Polish military authorities, surprised and confused by his persistence, accepted him.

When, immediately after finishing law school, I chose to join the United States Air Force (USAF) as a lawyer in what was then known as the Judge Advocate General’s Department (now USAF JAG Corps), it was nearly as unusual a choice for me who had been brought up with a European Jewish Bundist ethos as my Zayda’s was back then. 

Like my cherished Zayda, I too, wanted to prove to anyone and everyone what it meant to me to be Jewish. I wanted to defy ugly stereotypes and demonstrate that Jews are able and willing, even eager, to serve their country, in ways that historically were exceedingly difficult, or even impossible, for Jews. I wanted to battle the hateful concept of Jewish inferiority and expose the oft promulgated lie that Jews living outside of Israel are loyal only to Israel. I felt that by actively making a choice to serve my country in uniform as a lawyer, it would be a tiny, but personally meaningful way, of demonstrating my desire to be a part of something greater than myself, and to, hopefully, engage in work that would bolster democracy – a value that I find inherent in the concept of Tikkun Olam. In this respect, when I served as Chief of Operational Contracting, I was fortunate, among my other duties, to be the officer responsible for interpreting, applying, and ensuring compliance with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Promotion day arrived as did my parents and my beloved Zayda. I adored my grandfather, and was thrilled that he would make the trip with my parents. Driving all the way from New York City to Montgomery, Alabama, where I was working my first assignment as a JAG, the distance they traversed was not only through several states, but into an entirely different world. They journeyed from the urban diversity and the Yiddishisms spouted by all New Yorkers, Jew and non-Jew alike (oy vey!) into the deep south, with all of its not so distant past, and still simmering present, laden with racism and overlaid with a veneer of southern homeyness, hospitality, and homogeneity.

The entire experience was, I imagine, a bit surreal for all of them.

It was definitely surreal for me. What I remember most all these years later is the juxtaposition of my background and my new reality – my New York Jewish family and my new friends and fellow airmen from all over the southern United States and the midwest – virtually everywhere else other than New York.

Zayda Nachman, with his sparkling cerulean eyes, enchanted everyone he encountered. This was nothing new. His optimism and zest for life and colorful experiences, despite all that he had endured, was contagious.

Unlike many others, who chose not to talk about and thereby relive the horrific brutality and nightmares they endured during the war, my Zayda made the deliberate choice to speak out, and bear witness to the unspeakable.

Yet, my Zayda rarely spoke about the instances where his own actions helped to prolong and save the lives of his fellow prisoners in the merciless Soviet gulag of Opalicha in Yaroslavl oblast. We know of Nachman’s actions only because they were relayed to us by those whom he helped, and on the rare occasions my Zayda referred to these events, it was only tangentially in talking about the entirety of his experiences of extreme deprivation, starvation, and brutal forced labor in the Opalicha gulag.

Years after the war, my mother heard from several of Nachman’s fellow prisoners at Opalicha who moved to Israel. They explained that my Zayda Nachman drastically understated the consequences to himself had he been caught sheltering fellow inmates. He would have been executed – not “merely” beaten. 

When I think about my Zayda Nachman’s experiences during the war and the way he met the very worst of humanity with the very best of his humanity, I am struck by the awareness that Nachman lived his life through the lens of Tikkun Olam, while he also embodied the core values of the United States Air Force – Integrity, Service before self and Excellence in all he did.

Everyone at my promotion ceremony was so warm, welcoming, and genuinely full of joy and affection for me and my family. I was deeply touched to see how everyone delighted in meeting my family especially my wonderful Zayda. It all happened as though it were a dream. Even during the ceremony I had to keep reminding myself that it was actually real – that I was standing in front of my parents and beloved Zayda and all my new Air Force friends achieving something that would have seemed inconceivable to me only a few years earlier.

My commander Colonel Turner was respected, indeed revered, by all of the junior officers. He treated us with kindness and respect and was gentle in correcting any of our errors. We all were better officers because of the way he modeled leadership. So it was a monumental honor that he and my Zayda pinned on my new rank. Colonel Turner treated my Zayda with great warmth and respect. When I look at the photo of them with their raised arms poised above my shoulders pinning on my new silver Captain’s bars the surge of pride I still feel is profound.

Reaffirming the oath, the ceremony, the cake, and being surrounded by my friends and family made for a memorable experience but the one thing that stands out above all else is the way my Zayda Nachman was beaming with pride throughout the entire ceremony and afterwards. It was, I think, a vindication of all that he had endured to make it to America, the Goldene Medina – that his Jewish granddaughter was proudly serving the country that he believed stood for truth, justice, and the American way.

Now when I reflect on the burgeoning and violent acts of antisemitism that have metastasized throughout the United States since my Zayda passed away in 2001, I know deep in my gut that my beloved Zayda Nachman’s optimism and vision of America as a safe haven from pogroms, persecution, and privation has been shattered. 

Tikkun Olam, the uniquely Jewish concept of repairing the world that my Zayda held so dear, is more crucial now than ever before. 

Nachman would be horrified and brokenhearted to see the promise of America betrayed as neo-Nazis, marching at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, shouted “Jews will not replace us” and one year later the deadliest antisemitic terrorist attack in US history that killed 11 people and wounded six including Holocaust survivors at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in October 2018.

Antisemitism, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of bigotry are now openly touted as patriotism and not just by fringe political figures. Such beliefs are now horrifyingly mainstream. 

Nachman’s famous optimism sprang from the idea that learning, knowledge, and understanding can breed tolerance. Tolerance leads to respect for differences and respect can lead to peace and even friendship.

My beloved Zayda Nachman taught me that the essence of Tikkun Olam means standing up for the rights of others even when one’s own rights are not in jeopardy. 

Besides voting, as my Zayda did faithfully in every election (he viewed it as a vital act of citizenship), my efforts at Tikkun Olam are to continue speaking out, and committing to never being a bystander to injustice. 

Daughter of an immigrant Jewish mother from the foothills of the Himalayas and a South Bronx born Puerto Rican Jewish father, Jessica Ursell is a veteran JAG officer of the United States Air Force, poet, and ardent advocate and public speaker against antisemitism, racism, and bigotry. The granddaughter of survivors of the Holocaust, Soviet gulags, and a descendant of a Taíno great-grandma, she understands in her bones what happens when intolerance, indifference, and ignorance take root in society. 

Raised by scientist parents, Jessica’s early environment was steeped in an atmosphere where questions were welcomed and asking “why not” was encouraged. Jessica lives with her husband in Southern Italy where she writes essays and poetry addressing the complex interplay between trauma, power, love, loss, and madness. 

Her essays, “At the Country Club with Superman” and “Standing Up for the Voiceless: My Fight with Royalty in Anne Frank’s House,” were published by The Jewish Writing Project in July 2022, and October 2022, respectively. Jessica‘s poem, “Sedimented Rock,” was selected by Beate Sigriddaughter, former poet laureate of Silver City, New Mexico and was published by Writing In A Woman’s Voice on 18 November 2023. Jessica’s most recent poem, “A Still-Life Collage of Lost Objects,” will appear in the February 2024 print issue of Down in the Dirt magazine as well as online (v. 216 Scars Publications).

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January 1, 2024 · 7:30 am

Ancestors

by Natalie Zellat Dyen (Huntington Valley, PA)

Last year I searched for my grandfather’s grave at Har Jehuda Cemetery.

Nathan Weisbord. 

Section C25, row 2, location 47.

But couldn’t find him. 

Once, I was able to run my hand over Hebrew letters incised into the stone.

Once I was able trace the date of his death from the Spanish flu: October 1918. 

But now he is twice buried.

This time in a jungle of tangled weeds and branches. 

Buried by neglect that afflicts old Jewish cemeteries like this one.

Cemeteries passed down to owners unwilling or unable to maintain what was entrusted to them. 

We are the caretakers of our ancestors.

Responsible for remembering them and reciting their names. 

It’s not easy for many of us to find our roots. 

Nature unchecked reclaims its own.

Paths to our history are blocked by twisted roots.

And burned records.

And toppled gravestones.

And the rubble of cemeteries in the old country.

The last time I visited Har Jehuda I was a volunteer. 

One of many warriors, armed with rakes, hedge trimmers, and bare hands.

Working to clear the paths, section by section. 

We have not yet reached my grandfather’s grave.

But we are persistent.

We Jews. 

That’s how we survive.

I had hoped to accomplish much as a volunteer. 

Bus alas, my ability to twist and bend

Had gone the way of my youth.

So I sat down and continued weeding and trimming on the ground. 

But when it was time to leave, I found myself stuck.

Lacking the strength to get back on my feet. 

So I wrapped my arms around the nearest gravestone.

A monument to man named Joseph Feingold

Who died in 1948. 

And he helped to lift me to my feet. 

As Jews, we are responsible for each other in life and in death. 

And as I honor my ancestors, they will continue to lift me.

Natalie Zellat Dyen began writing humor pieces and essays for newspapers while working as a technical writer. Since turning to fiction, her work has appeared in a number of publications including, Philadelphia Stories, The MacGuffin, the Schuylkill Valley Journal, Willow Review, Alternative Truths: Endgame, Jewish Writing Project, Damselfly, CERASUS Magazine, Every Day Fiction, and Neshaminy: The Bucks County Historical and Literary Journal. Her short story collection, Finding Her Voice, was published in 2019. Her debut novel, Locked in Silence, a work of historical fiction, will be released on February 1, 2024.

To learn more about Natalie and her work, visit her website: www.nataliewrites.com. 

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December 11, 2023 · 7:30 am

The Challenges of Conversion

By Joseph O’Keefe (Rockville Centre, NY)

Please do not call me by my Hebrew name. As a convert, I am considered the child of Abraham and Sarah (Avram v’Sarah), but they are not my parents. Brian and Cathy are.

For all the richness that Judaism has brought to my own life and family, I have never been able to reconcile with this tradition – particularly as it involves the love and support of those that positioned and prepared me for the choice to embrace a new faith. 

Is it possible to feel fully accepted when such a distinction is made between Jews-by-birth and Jews-by-choice? At what point does the symbolism of a shared ancestry ostracize the convert? And how can their ‘real’ past be recognized while simultaneously honoring the history of their adoptive one? 

Anita Diamant opens her invaluable book Choosing a Jewish Life with an anecdote about a rabbi telling a convert that even Fitzgerald can be a Jewish name. That may be true outside of temple. But where it also counts, during rites and rituals, the gentile’s past is essentially disregarded.

Having been raised a Roman Catholic, I was familiar with the Biblical stories of Abraham and Sarah, including how they are told that their descendants will someday be as numerous as the stars in the sky – the very beginning of Jewish lineage and the reason why all converts are considered their children. 

There is an undeniable beauty in the idea that we Jews share a common set of parents and that our ancestors were prophets singled out by the Almighty. To be born to Jewish parents is to draw a continuous line between oneself and the ancients, but the convert lives both inside and outside the diaspora, and assigning a single surname to the entire group can leave us feeling ‘other.’

Heritage should be a point of pride, particularly for a group whose history is so heavily defined by attempts to eradicate it. The stories of crypto-Jews, those Jews who secretly practiced their faith in 13-14th century Europe, were an inspiration to me during my conversion and remain so now. Even today, some Jews proudly refer to themselves as Kohans – descendants of an exalted line dating back to the Israelites. My birth name, O’Keefe, tells its own story, but it is easy for converts to feel some insecurity when their Hebrew names so clearly denote newness, i.e., the absence of longevity. 

Not all sects recognize converts like myself as equal members of the faith, and those looking to join stricter denominations are subject to an even more rigorous process than I was. Between the ascendance of antisemitism and the hard-right drift in Israeli politics, I worry about the distinction becoming relevant should my family ever need to seek safe haven – this despite the fact that, as many of the Jews I know have noted, the conversion process has left me more knowledgeable than some born into the faith. In fact, there are plenty of stories of Jews by choice who took to their new faith so strongly that they became more orthodox than their partners had anticipated or hoped. 

My parents had already come to know and love my wife before I chose to convert. From the time we began dating, we knew that religion would be an issue, and there were plenty of intense discussions along the way. She had been raised in an observant home, attended yeshiva, and wanted to be married under the chuppah. Like countless others in our position, we took a class together while I did some one-on-one study with our rabbi and learned some basic Hebrew. In time I found myself in the mikvah, successfully pleading my case in front of the beit din and embracing a new faith while my wife was reconnecting with hers. 

Admittedly, I do not recall thinking much about my new name during the conversion work. It was not until we were invited to  to the bema after I had finished that it truly dawned on me. 

Members of my family had come to temple to celebrate, and my in-laws were sponsoring the post-service meal. My wife had been helping me with my pronunciation and I was sitting nervously waiting to be called when the rabbi introduced us by our Hebrew names. She said it quickly enough that few likely   noticed, but I did. And then again at our aufruf. And during our vows. Now it is written in the ketubah that hangs in our home and will be recited at my children’s mitzvot and someday at my own funeral. 

My conversion certificate is a joyful souvenir of the time spent learning about and embracing Judaism, but its signatory line stings. It is a reminder that no matter what has been gained and how I have worked to join this community, there are some lines that can never be breached. Nevertheless, I continue to live a life informed by faith, and we are raising our children to do the same. My parents have since passed and though their names are illuminated on the dates of their Yahrzeits and I remember them at Yizkor, I cannot help in moments of solemnity to feel envious of those who carry the names of their actual parents along with them and, even more, to think that mine deserve better.  

The questioning of tradition is itself an expression of Judaism. On the very first night of conversion class, the rabbi told us that doubt was an essential part of the journey and that so long as we were to be Jews, it was our responsibility to argue and debate. So here I am doing my part. If Judaism means to embrace its converts, recognition of their actual pasts is a good place to start. 

Joseph O’Keefe is a research administrator from Long Island, NY where he lives with his wife and two children. 

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December 4, 2023 · 7:30 am

I forgot to light a candle

by Dennis Gura (Santa Monica, CA)

I forgot to light a candle the other day:

It was an uncle’s memorial,

But he was gone before I was,

And the recollections second-hand:

What my father mentioned,

The documents entrusted to me,

The rare, very rare, comments of my grandfather.

I did not know the precise date until

After they too were gone, when

I dug through the papers

And figured out the World War

Two details. They did not mark

The date.

Nor did they light a candle,

And certainly no prayer was uttered.

No kaddish for the boy gone in France.

My grandfather might have

Been bemused, or likely annoyed,

That I would recited the doxology

For his sons, or for him,

For that is an obligation I have

Saddled myself with.

But this year, I neglected

To consult my calendar in

A timely fashion, and the

Day on which I should have

Lit the candle to

Honor the sacrifice of

The too-young uncle

Had already passed.

No candle this year.

Perhaps this scribble will do

To recall the uncle gone

Before I, or my elder sibs,

Arrived, though both of them bear

His name in some fashion. Perhaps

Their lives will make do

For the absent flame.

Dennis Gura is a father, husband, and an engaged and serious Jew who tries to understand a complex and confusing world as best as possible. A native Angeleno, he has been deeply engaged in Jewish thought and experiences his entire life–the ethnic, the ethical, the secular, and the religious.  He was privileged to study at Machon Pardes in 1982-83, and has since bounced around various LA synagogues and Jewish groups.

If you’d like to read more of his work, visit his Substack page, where this poem first appeared (and is reprinted here with permission of the author): https://dennisgura.substack.com

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October 16, 2023 · 7:30 am

You Want Me to Keep a Kosher Kitchen? Really? 

by Carol Blatter (Tucson, AZ)

I was surprised when my husband-to-be told me that he wanted me to keep a kosher kitchen.  

“How do you keep kosher?” I asked.

“I can show you. I use white gold-rimmed glass dishes which are ok for both meat and dairy on the first two shelves of that cabinet.” 

He pointed to a wooden four-shelf cabinet with a brass handle on its door above the Formica counter. 

“I keep pans for dairy and meat on the third and fourth shelves. On the back side of each one is incised with either a D or an M.  I can put sticky notes on each of these drawers so you will know which silverware is for dairy and which is for meat. It’s really easy.”

“I don’t think it sounds so easy. . .” 

Anxiety visited me. My stomach felt tense and I started to sweat. My heart rate climbed. I’ve never been very good at change and I’ve always feared failure. Now recollections of old failures tried to take hold of me again. 

A few deep, steady breaths helped me relax. Keeping kosher is not a test of competence. What are the worst things that can happen? Maybe I will mix up meat and dairy silverware? Maybe I will make an egg and cheese omelet using a meat pan instead of a dairy pan? Then I reminded myself that mistakes are inevitable. There’s no penalty I could think of for goofing up with the exception of my slightly damaged ego, some embarrassment, and some shame which will all be short-lived. Maybe I will disappoint my husband-to-be, but that’s ok. He’ll have to get over it.

I took the big step. I told him I would keep kosher.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll help you.”

* * *

My husband, unlike me, grew up in a kosher home. His parents never mixed meat and milk. They had separate meat dishes and dairy dishes. And they had separate dishes, pots and pans, silverware, and utensils set aside only for the eight-day holiday of Passover. That’s what he knew and keeping kosher was his choice in adulthood.

“We’ll work on this together,” he told me. “I use these bowls for cereal at breakfast and small dishes for sandwiches like tuna and egg salad for lunches on the weekends when I’m not at work. And I use these large plates at dinner time for a meat or chicken meal. Sometimes I use these larger bowls for kosher soups. Almost all are parve except for the chicken soup.”

“What’s parve?”

“Neutral. Parve foods can be eaten alone or with meat or dairy. Glass doesn’t retain either. ”

“What else will I need to know?” I asked, feeling my stomach churn again.

“Don’t get too worried. You’ll be fine. We’ll work together preparing our Shabbat dinner. What about chicken for the main meal? 

“I know many ways to make chicken,” I said, relieved to know I could cook some of my favorites, like baked chicken with seasonings of onion salt and paprika, mixed with wine and orange juice, and chicken cacciatore, chicken browned first with minced garlic and baked with a tomato, onion, and basil sauce.

“Wow, that all sounds great. I was a bake ‘n shake man until you joined me.”

* * *

We married a few days before Passover to avoid the eight-week no-marrying period between Passover and Shavuot.

All I remember about Passover was seeing a box of matzah on the kitchen table in our apartment. We didn’t search for the chametz. I never saw my mom do a mega-house cleaning. I don’t think we even had a seder. So how could I have possibly known what to do?”

Fortunately, friends invited us to the first seder on Passover just after we got married. We arrived early. I told Bobbie, our hostess, that I had no idea how to keep kosher for Passover. She showed me the pantry where she kept the Passover-only dishes, silverware, pots, pans, and utensils. In a second pantry, she kept Passover-only non-perishable foods. Bobbie taught me which foods were appropriate for Passover.

In the middle of the table was the seder plate with the roasted egg, the shank bone, the celery, the hazeret, the charoset, and shavings from the horseradish root. We read from the Haggadah and discussed the theme of freedom from slavery and the current forms of enslavement. I’ve never forgotten that seder. It shaped my understanding of Passover and my desire to give seders in the future.

* * *

Throughout the fifty-four years of our marriage we have kept kosher. For me, keeping kosher is part of being a proud and devoted Jew, continuing a practice that has contributed to Jewish survival for thousands of years. 

Carol J. Wechsler Blatter is a recently retired psychotherapist in private practice. She has contributed writings to Chaleur Press, Story Circle Network Journal and One Woman’s Day; stories in Writing it Real anthologies, Mishearing: Miseries, Mysteries, and Misbehaviors, Real Women Write: Growing/ Older, Real Women Write: Seeing Through Their Eyes, Story Circle Network’s Kitchen Table Stories, The Jewish Writing Project, Jewish Literary Journal, New Millennium Writings, 101words.org, and poems in Story Circle Network’s Real Women Write, Beyond Covid: Leaning into Tomorrow, and Covenant of the Generations by Women of Reform Judaism. She is a wife, mother, and grandmother. 

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October 2, 2023 · 7:30 am

Rebel

by Lori Levy (Sherman Oaks, CA)

If everyone else is doing it, that’s a good reason not to do it—

     Dr. Richard (Reuven) Sobel, my father, RIP

In my granddaughter’s jujitsu class

there’s a boy named Rebel—

a name to live up to, I think.

I am not a rebel

but the rebel in me roars

when it comes to holidays, traditions, rituals.

I want to do them my way

which means no fasting on Yom Kippur.

Fasting gives me a headache. I need coffee

when I wake up, food to start the day.

Only then, belly full, can I contemplate my sins.

If it’s up to me, we don’t have to bother with the symbols

required for a Passover plate: shank bone, bitter herbs, haroset.

Can’t we skip the long prayers and just eat matzo?

One year we are in Spain on Rosh Hashanah,

all of us there for my nephew’s wedding.

We celebrate the holiday with apples and honey

on a blanket at the beach. Perfect, I think.

My rebel smiles and disappears.

Sometimes, filled with guilt, I accuse my rebel:

you’re just lazy—too lazy to cook and host

a big holiday meal, though you don’t seem to mind

when others do the cooking. What kind of Jew are you?

No, not lazy! I shout. (Am I my rebel?)

I do want my loved ones at the table with me,

not for prayers, not for the Bible I never read,

just a meal, togetherness.

I wasn’t raised on holidays—except Hanukkah,

for a few gifts, so we wouldn’t feel left out

when all the other kids in our small Vermont town

were getting toys and clothes under their Christmas trees. 

No Purim for us, or Succot. No synagogue in our town

or Jews in my class. No Bar Mitzvah for my brother— 

but when he turned 13, my atheist father and 

non-religious mother took us on a trip to Israel.

Several years later, there we were, living in Israel.

I could talk about history, the Holocaust—or just say

I fell in love with the country. Or maybe

with Israeli men. I married one.

We celebrated the holidays with his family,

but now, years later, I’m back where I began,

not wanting the rituals that were never, back then,

a part of my life. I’m happy to be a Jew, but

this is my Judaism: my Israeli husband,

Israel, my kids born there. It’s not about Moses or

the Torah. Maybe it’s nothing more than

hummus and pita, Israeli pickles and olives.

We eat them in Los Angeles now.

Lori Levy’s poems have appeared in Rattle, Nimrod International Journal, Paterson Literary Review, Poet Lore, Mom Egg Review, and numerous other literary journals and anthologies in the U.S., the U.K., and Israel.  Her work has also been published in medical humanities journals and in Jewish journals such as The Reform Jewish Quarterly, Shirim, and The Jewish Journal. Her chapbook, Feet in L.A., But My Womb Lives in Jerusalem, My Breath in Vermont, is forthcoming from Ben Yehuda Press in the fall/winter.  She lives with her extended family in Los Angeles, but “home” has also been Vermont and Israel and, for several months, Panama.

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September 4, 2023 · 6:30 am

What’s In A Name                            

by Annette Friend (Del Mar, CA)

Annette.
Yes, that’s right.
Like Annette Funicello
if you are old enough to remember
the most popular Mouseketeer’s
television career.

Yes, named after my grandmother,
Hannah, or, in English, Anna.
A Jewish tradition,
naming for the dead,
so their memory and names are not lost
like forgotten pages in time.
Annette is “little Anna”
but definitely not French.

Ancestors from what is now Ukraine.
Before that Russia.
Before that Poland.
Before that a genetic mutation
hurtles me back in time
to the First Temple
in Jerusalem.

We Jews assimilate
but carry our names and histories
with us where ever troubles
and travels take us.
Our names, reflections
of double or triple identities.
In Hebrew
my name is Channah Bat Shayna
and Bat Lev.
Channah daughter of Shayna
who became Jean,
Lev who became Leo
when they crossed
the Atlantic sick in steerage.

We carry our heavy histories,
sometimes unbearable,
fastened on our backs.

I asked my mother once
why she never named me
for her sister Mae,
killed by the Nazis in Poland.
She said there were too many tears
that soaked that name.

But my new great niece
is named Paisley Mae.
A red-cheeked North Carolina baby
who carries the past
as a piece of her
like a pure white pebble
perhaps smoothed over
by the passage of time
until the rough edges
of history disappear.

Annette Friend, a retired occupational therapist and elementary school teacher, taught both Hebrew and Judaica to a wide range of students. In 2008, she was honored as the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Jewish Educator of the Year from San Diego. Her work has been published in The California Quarterly, Tidepools, Summation, and The San Diego Poetry Annual.

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August 21, 2023 · 6:30 am

Something about the rugelach

by Carol Coven Grannick (Evanston, IL)

Something about the rugelach…

they bring her to mind 

the word rolling out like pastry dough

spreading smooth and silky, caressed then cut

they bring her to mind 

as part of the duet with Dad during nighttime travel

dark-lit stars, Yiddish lullabies in the language of then 

the word rolling out like pastry dough

with tastes of comfort and warmth and now

tenderness of hugs still desired this long time later

spreading smooth and silky, caressed then cut

fondled, filled and curled with tenderness then baked

now infusing my mind with the delicate aroma of my mother’s memory.

Carol Coven Grannick is a poet and children’s author whose award-winning novel in verse, Reeni’s Turn, debuted in 2020. Her poetry for adults and children appears/is forthcoming in numerous print and online magazines, and she has received two Illinois Arts Council grants and a Ragdale Foundation Residency for her work.

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