Category Archives: Judaism

September 12, 2025 · 7:30 am

We Must Have Apples

by Beth Kanell (Waterford, VT)

Rain returned as we met the new year. She danced,

spread perfumed presence. Rosh Chodesh Elul sang to us. 

Mouths wet at last, our tongues merged in prayer, chanted

gratitude. Thirst assuaged.

The calendar refreshed proclaims the Days of Awe.

Yesterday’s air, dry with drought, hung dusty with death—

now the tree trembles, as droplets pelt the leaves,

soak into soil. Roots

demand tenderness. Who longs for honey on the tongue, 

while the hills bruise to umber, tarnished with gold, splashed

with blood-bright crimson? The weather forecast misses this:

proposes paper profiles  

as we taste promises. Out to sea, cyclones seethe. Rain

may increase this evening. The first day of the Jewish new year

starts at sundown, rarely the same day of an autumn month

the calendar also dancing

which is why we are picking apples in such rain; wind could

scatter them on the ground, bruise them, aromatic invitation

to passing deer, who devour in darkness. We are almost ready,

recipes laid out. Memories

of grandparents and of children’s questions. Of answers

that we can’t yet believe. Of what we could not prevent: raw

grief for the unrescued, the damaged, the struggle to praise

as we witness death. Wash

with tenderness. Fruit, too, desires cool water. Paring. A wiped

board for sorting, slicing, blade laid to red-green apple peel 

that curls in crisp helix around our fingers. Regrets, resolutions:

a busy kitchen, scrubbed hands,

heart shaken and struck by the evening news. Rain splashes,

weeping. It falls on the just and the unjust, the judged, the parched

urgency of the garden in autumn as squash ripens, carrots swell,

atonement hesitates, the Taurid meteors

spit fireballs across September’s crisp crust. Aroma of apples.

Of my mother’s cinnamon willingness, my father’s tobacco,

the sour tang of sweat and fear in any crowded room. Open doors

admit fresh forgiveness: hear the rain.

Beth Kanell lives in northeastern Vermont among rivers, rocks, and a lot of writers. Her poems seek comfortable seats in small well-lit places, including Lilith Magazine, The Comstock Review, Indianapolis Review, Gyroscope Review, The Post-Grad Journal, Does It Have Pockets?, Anti-Heroin Chic, Ritualwell, Persimmon Tree, Northwind Treasury, RockPaperPoem, and Rise Up Review. Her collection Thresholds is due in early 2026 from Kelsay Books. Join her for conversation (bring your own tea) at https://bethkanell.blogspot.com.

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September 8, 2025 · 7:30 am

Maple

by Lori Levy (Sherman Oaks, CA)

My friend says I’m always looking for maple—

for what’s good and sweet, like the syrup made from

the maples of my childhood in Vermont.

Not everything in life is maple, she says.

Maybe I’m looking for it more these days.

The older I get, the more I notice

the bittersweet taste of life. I wish I could say

it’s like the chocolate I use to make brownies,

but it’s more like this:

as I’m sitting with a friend in rapt silence,

watching Itzhak Perlman play violin in Los Angeles,

another concert is going on in Gaza,

a bloodcurdling one of booms, bangs, screams. 

My siblings in Israel send me photos of flowers blooming

in green fields: lupines, cyclamens, clovers, daisies.

The war is in its fifth month,

but there they are, walking among irises, anemones. 

I read about an 84-year-old woman

held hostage by Hamas in a dark, airless tunnel,

how she’s given six dates to eat, her food for the day,

a bottle of water placed just beyond her reach:

she’s too weak to get up from her mattress.

Palestinians are dying. Israelis are dying.

Children in Gaza are starving. Israeli hostages are being raped.

My worldview begins to crack and crumble:

Was I wrong to believe people are basically good?

I used to laugh in denial when my daughter said evil exists.

Now I dig in the dark, desperate for a trace of maple.

Lori Levy’s poems have appeared in Rattle, Nimrod International Journal, Poet Lore, Paterson Literary Review, and numerous other online and print literary journals and anthologies in the U.S., the U.K., and Israel. Her poems have also been published in medical humanities journals and Jewish journals. In 2023, two of her chapbooks were published: What Do You Mean When You Say Green? and Other Poems of Color (Kelsay Books) and Feet in L.A., But My Womb Lives in Jerusalem, My Breath in Vermont (Ben Yehuda Press). You can find some of her poems on Instagram at IG@lorilevypoems. Levy lives with her husband in Los Angeles near their children and grandchildren, but “home,” for her, has also been Vermont and Israel. 

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September 1, 2025 · 7:30 am

Displaced Jews 

(Written during the LA wildfires, January 2025)

by Harriet Wolpoff (San Diego, CA)

About 16 million

That’s how many Jews 

Are in the world right now

Of them,

Over 100,000 are displaced

Inside Israel

And here, in LA,

How many 

Of the over 100,000 displaced

Are also Jews?

How many Shabbat candles

Will be lit tonight

On hotel dressers?

How many heads will rest

On pillows not their own?

How many fears will surface

In strange rooms

Or in tunnels?

We need a miracle Shabbat

There and here

One that returns 

Internal refugees

To their homes safely

One that provides 

New, hopeful dwellings 

For our homeless

Protected from

The ravages of terrorists,

The ravages of climate change

Ufros aleynu sukkat shlomecha

Ceilings, walls, floors

That will never be taken for granted. 

Harriet Wolpoff is retired after several years in the New York City public school system and a forty year career in Jewish education in San Diego, winning many awards for ground-breaking programming.  She has been studying Israeli poetry with Rachel Korazim for over four years. Harriet is proudest of being a wife, mother, and Bubbe of three grandchildren who inspire many of her poems.

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August 25, 2025 · 7:30 am

Persecution or Paranoia? The Mysterious Case of the Missing Cheese Blintzes

By Marcie Geffner (Ventura, California)

My neighbor told me about the cheese blintzes.

I live in a small town, about sixty miles northwest of Los Angeles, closer to the San Fernando Valley than the Westside. There’s no New York-style deli here. Cheese blintzes weren’t exactly for sale around the corner.

But they were for sale down the street. Less than two miles away at . . . wait for it, Trader Joe’s. In the frozen foods’ aisle.

They came in a thin, rectangular blue box. On the front, below the yellow script saying, “Cheese Blintzes,” was a mouth-watering photo of two blintzes stacked and cut to show the filling. Chunks of peaches nestled at their sides. A dollop of sour cream rested on top. Eight in a box, each a small, convenient bundle of warm, familiar comfort food.

And, oh, they were delicious! Creamy. Not too sweet. Perfect with a tiny scoop of Costco’s strawberry preserves. The best blintzes, maybe, I’d ever tasted. Certainly, the best frozen variety. And, according to the package, they were surprisingly low-calorie, relatively speaking.

They quickly became my favorite go-to late-night snack.

And then, they went missing. In vain, I searched through the Trader Joe’s frozen foods’ aisle. Ice cream. Broccoli. Spanakopita. Pasta. Pizza. Waffles. Pancakes. French fries.

I approached a guy in a red shirt.

“Blintzes?”

He gave me a blank look.

I explained.

“I’ll check in the back.”

“I’ll wait here.”

I waited. And waited.

“They’ve been discontinued.”

Do I need to tell you how heartbroken I was? Bereft. Grieving. I’m not a foodie, but I am a picky eater. When I find something I like, I become fond of it, attached even.

What’s more, I’d felt seen because of those blintzes, as if someone at Trader Joe’s knew where I lived and knew I liked their cheese blintzes.

Now I’d reverted to being invisible. Melted into the pot instead of a crouton in the salad. 

This mystery of the missing blintzes became my go-to conversation starter for more than a week.

“Did you know?” I’d ask. “Yes, I went to the website.”

I complained. Requested. Begged. “Please, please, PLEASE bring back the cheese blintzes!”

I’d expected my neighbor who’d told me about the blintzes to share my concern. But he was oddly blasé. Not disappointed. Not distressed. Not even a little. Not at all.

“Costco has them,” he informed me.

Need I say: massive relief?

Total excitement!

Can you guess what happened next?

Off I went. Costco’s frozen foods’ aisles are longer, wider, taller, and more numerous than Trader Joe’s’.

I searched. No blintzes.

“We no longer have them. Discontinued.”

No!

Was it a conspiracy? A supply chain snafu? A manufacturer gone out of business? Were cheese blintzes not profitable enough at any price to earn their shelf space? I had no idea.

That might’ve been the end of this story had not one of my cousins invited me to lunch with some of our other cousins at a well-known deli in Los Angeles a few weeks later.

I’d been thinking of ordering a veggie sandwich until . . . you guessed it . . . someone ordered cheese blintzes.

Cheese blintzes?!

I perked up.

They were not, I’m sorry to report, as awesome as Trader Joe’s’. Good, yes, but not great. More doughy than creamy and too sweet. A lesser-quality brand of frozen, I imagined. Or just not to my taste. I’d been spoiled by the best.

I turned to one of my cousins. “Trader Joe’s discontinued these,” I told her.

“It’s antisemitic,” she said.

“What?” I didn’t think so.

“It’s true,” she insisted.

“Then, why are they still selling the frozen potato latkes?”

She didn’t know. We discussed this at some length. We didn’t agree.

Later, I wondered: Was she right? Was there actually a products manager in a small, dark office somewhere at Trader Joe’s going through lists and canceling anything that seemed Jewish? And was there another manager in another small, dark office somewhere at Costco doing the same thing? And had both of these managers targeted my cheese blintzes?

I couldn’t imagine it. But my cousin had sounded so sure. An Israeli brand of hummus had been discontinued as well, she’d said.

I don’t know which thought was more troubling to me: that the discontinuation of the blintzes was antisemitic or that whether it was or wasn’t antisemitic didn’t matter as much as the fact that reasonable people, such as my cousin, believed it was and, though I wasn’t convinced, I couldn’t prove them wrong.

Was I hopelessly naïve, so far outside of the bubble of Jewish life or just not Jewish enough to realize that the discontinuation of cheese blintzes was obviously antisemitic? Was I being persecuted, albeit in a way that seemed small and unprofitable?

The idea struck me as ludicrous. But I have to admit: I had doubts and I had  credible reasons to be on guard, cynical, even suspicious.

Boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses and Israeli-made products have a long history.

In Austria, such actions dated back to at least the 1890s and continued until 1938, when the Nazis annexed the country and forced out the Jewish owners, leaving no one for them to target with future boycotts.

The Nazis had already organized a similar boycott in Germany five years earlier, in 1933. It lasted only one day and was ignored by many, but marked the beginning of a nationwide campaign against the Jewish population.

In the U.S., activists have targeted Trader Joe’s products imported from Israel since at least 2009, when protestors removed Israeli products from shelves and distributed anti-Israel leaflets at two stores in Northern California. Just last year, some 15,000 people signed a petition.

Lists of boycott targets that I found online didn’t mention Trader Joe’s or Costco. But some included Quaker Oats and Doritos, both of which are sold at Costco. Also on the target list: Whole Foods Market. Did they sell cheese blintzes?

None of this explained whether the disappearance of my beloved blintzes was a trivial matter or a serious issue or maybe even a precursor to something worse. Would a ban against Jewish grocery shoppers be next?

Paranoia or persection: what do you think?

I wish this story had a happy ending.

A week later, the cheese blintzes were back!

Alas, no.

Now I can only wander, forlorn, up and down the frozen foods’ aisles, searching for the blue boxes, hoping for them to reappear, and wondering why, exactly, they went missing.

See you there?

Marcie Geffner is a journalist, writer, editor, and book critic. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, U.S. News & World Report, Professional Builder, Urban Land, Entrepreneur, Publishers Weekly, and the Washington Independent Review of Books, among other publications. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English at UCLA and a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) at Pepperdine University. Originally from Los Angeles, she currently lives in Ventura, California. She’s an active member of the National Book Critics Circle. Website: www.marciegeffner.com

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August 18, 2025 · 7:30 am

August in Galilee

by David Allard (London, UK)

 We went stone-gathering at dawn,

Thinking ourselves young pioneers

Redeeming the land,

Ungainly in old boots,

Still sticky-eyed and dry-mouthed,

To gather the rocky crop

Risen like dragons’ teeth

From the newly ploughed earth.

My heart awoke first, and

I forgot to breathe for a moment

When I saw you – once more

As if it was for the first time.

Your long black hair curtained your face

As you stooped to gather jagged chunks,

Then slid back when you rose, 

Loose-limbed and lambent, 

To cast your harvest, 

Clanging, echoing,

Into the rusting, dented tractor-drawn trailer.

“ He’s dreaming again,”

 You said to Bernice,

“ Hey you, wake up.”

You might have smiled, 

A muse then and now, 

Unknowingly holding

My fragile heart.

Why wake? Soon enough, 

The red sun risen from the distant ridge

Will turn a fierce yellow-white

And these last floating moments

Bathed in the night’s warmth

Of a faraway summer 

Will be gone, 

But never lost.

David Allard, now retired, lives in London, UK. He lived in Israel through the seventies. He writes poems and short stories, and has been published in the USA, UK and Israel. A detective novel, The Last Resort, set in a sleepy seaside town, has been published under the pseudonym David Strauss and is available on Amazon.

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August 10, 2025 · 7:16 am

In His Hands

by Barbara Krasner (Somerset, NJ)

My grandfather once held my grandmother’s hands in his. I never knew her. He held the keys of his wooden register in his hands. Canned goods. Fresh produce. Milk bottles for the 1915 free milk campaign as announced in the Newark Evening Star. He held my infant father in his hands, an American-born baby of a Litvak and a Galitzianer. He held his aging mother’s hands and when I was born, and my mother asked him for a name, he gave me the name of his mother, Bryna, and his eldest sister. Doba, who died in the 1918 flu pandemic. He once held shoelaces that he dipped in leather in his first job at a Newark tannery. He once held pencils and rulers in his work as a joiner in Russia. He once held the parcels of his Russian life as he steamed across the Atlantic at age 19 on the SS Rotterdam in 1899 to join his brother in Newark. He held the fringes of his tallis and the leather straps of his phylacteries that I now keep in a special treasures drawer. My grandfather once held the remote to his Amana television to watch The Lawrence Welk Show and used it to change the channel to The Wonderful World of Disney for me. He once held the lever to vote for Al Smith for American president after he became a US citizen. He once held the keys to a corner lot house after decades of living behind the general store he and my grandmother owned and operated. As he aged, he held the iron-wrought banister of the outdoor stairs to my father’s car. He held my father’s hands for support. He held onto life itself to the age of 93.

But with all that my grandfather held, I don’t think he ever once held me.

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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July 28, 2025 · 7:30 am

Isn’t Carol Married Yet?

by Carol Blatter (Tucson, AZ)

“Isn’t Carol married yet?” 

Gossipy women whispered to my mother thinking I didn’t hear them. But I did, and it hurt. Obsessive thoughts stuck in my head unabated. I was worried. Would I ever find a Jewish husband?

How I wanted to be married! As early as my young twenties I knew that I wanted to marry a Jewish man and carry on the Jewish traditions for our family (to be). But finding such a spouse was challenging. And waiting felt like an eternity. 

Painfully, I waited, and life felt like a travesty. Imagine! I had graduated from college without an engagement ring when the pressure for a young Jewish woman to marry was common (even though my parents tried to be subtle in their messaging). 

My mother, a college graduate in 1931, expected me to get a college degree, become a teacher (although I was not interested in teaching), and find a suitable mate. Education, first. Marriage, second. “Suitable” meant a Jewish professional young man with a good future who would earn well and provide for me and a future family. A mensch. 

Dad, who was still wedded to Old World thinking, wanted to see me married, but his criteria were what the prospective suitor’s father did for a living. Mom would say, “Albert, it doesn’t matter what his father does, I want to know what he does. That’s more important. She’s not marrying his father!”

Years later, on a wintry night at Shabbat services in January, 1966, I met Harold for the first time at the Highland Park (NJ) Conservative Synagogue. Mom was with me. During the Oneg Shabbat, she noticed Harold standing alone. Knowing Mom, I could read her thoughts. Perhaps he was single? 

Never one to miss an opportunity to make sure I would meet the right man, Mom encouraged me to start a conversation with him. But that wasn’t something I wanted to do. I was polite, but distant. It felt awkward. And, sadly, there were no sparks.

It wasn’t until a year later, after I had forgotten about Harold, when my husband-to-be met Mom in synagogue, and Mom invited him to dinner on a Sunday when I would be home from graduate school in Baltimore. 

I still remember when Harold arrived at Mom’s apartment. He was handsome, tall, with hazel eyes and a kind smile. He had loving hands and a soft, sweet face. I sensed a mensch, and was mesmerized. On the three-hour drive from New Jersey back to school in Baltimore, I kept thinking about him.

A year and a half later, after asking Mom for permission to marry me, Harold put a ring on my finger. (Dad had died a few years before our engagement.) Our wedding ceremony was held at the Princeton Jewish Center in Princeton NJ on March 30, 1969. This date was chosen so we could marry before the prohibition of marrying between Passover and Shavuot.

Harold and I signed the Ketubah, my new husband broke the glass, and all in attendance cried, Mazel tov!

Now, following the traditions that my husband grew up with, we keep a Kosher kitchen. His parents changed dishes, pots, and pans for Passover, and so do we. They attended Shabbat services, and so do we. They observed the High Holidays, Chanukah, and the festivals, and so do we. 

My fears of never finding a Jewish spouse or having a Jewish family of my own have melted away over the years. But I remember how painful it was when I was younger to wonder what the future might hold if I never married…

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

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July 21, 2025 · 7:30 am

Meditations on My Yiddish Name:  Mudke Velvel ben Yankel Yisroel, ha-Levi

by Bill Siegel (Boston, MA)

1.  Mudke

They named me Mudke

          Makes me think of mud cakes, mud crawlers

          Muddy Waters

But they must mean Mordche

          which translates to Mordecai

The Latin mort, Death

          coupled with the Hebrew chai, Life

In America, they changed it to Morton

          dropping the chai, taking the life out of the name

How could you saddle a baby with a name like that?

          My aunt chided her sister

As if forgetting it was her own father’s name given to me

As if forgetting it would keep their father’s name alive

2. Velvel

A stutter, or better, a strut

One syllable with each shoulder’s swagger

          Vel~right shoulder forward and

          Vel~with the left now 

Say his name twice if you say it once:

          Vel~Vel

3. Ben

Son of,

          the rising sun of the father’s new life

The dawn of his hopes

The bend when a river changes course

          Giving birth in its time to a new flow

Ben, bene, bien

The good son

          May he not forget his ancestors

          May he remember where he comes from

          May he remember his names

          That they may carry him

Where he’s going

4. Yankel Yisroel

Who wrestled with God’s Messenger

          Or maybe God Himself

The original knock-down, drag-out, one-fall, winner-take-all

          first fixed bout, a mismatch made in Heaven

Who wrestled with the mighty Thunder King

          forcing It to reveal Its name

Jacob, who became Israel

Yankel, who became Yisroel

Yankel Yisroel

Who patrolled the Shadow of Death

          lined with the dead of Hitler’s demons

          That would boil his people

          To make soap for the armpits of strangers

Peel their skin for lampshades

Who stood, barely 20 years old,

at liberated death camps, surrounded

          by the dead, the dying and the barely surviving

Who stood between captured German officers

          And the interrogating Americans

Using his Yiddish to translate,

          to bridge the combatting languages

To make what happened perfectly clear

5.  ha-Levi

Children of Levi, the one desert clan

          To keep their name for 40 centuries

Through 400 years of slavery

          And 40 years in the desert

Temple servants and warriors

          Guardians of the faith, stationed in every city

And still the tribe with no land of our own

          4000 years and still we wash

The hands of the Cohanim

before the priestly blessing

Look now at the graves of ha-Levi, the Levites

          See the cup carved into the stone

Like all Levis before me, my stone

will honor Miriam ha-Levi

          And her well of Living Water

          that will never run dry

6.  Mudke Velvel ben Yankel Yisroel, ha-Levi

All this in one name.

          All this in my name.

Bill Siegel lives in the Boston MA area, and writes both prose and poetry – about family, fishing, jazz, and more. He has two manuscripts in process: “Printed Scraps”, poems inspired by Japanese woodblock prints; and “Waiting to Go Home”, about family and memories of growing up. His work has been published in “Beyond Lament: Poets of the World Bearing Witness to the Holocaust” (Northwestern University Press), and “Indigenous Pop: Native American Music from Jazz to Hip Hop” (University of Arizona Press). His poems also appear in Blue Mesa Review, Rust+Moth, JerryJazzMusician, Brilliant Corners, and InMotion Magazine, among others.

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July 14, 2025 · 7:30 am

Questions I Never Asked

by Herbert Munshine (Great Neck, NY)

It’s too late now, far too late. Both my parents and

both my sisters are gone. My wellspring of family

knowledge has faded into the mysteries of history.

I was smart with books and sports, but I am ignorant

of my own history, full of regrets and a desire to know

but missing the precious resources that would have

filled the holes, the chasms in my consciousness.

When did they arrive in the U. S.? Why did they leave

Poland and Latvia? What was life there like for Jews?

How did they meet? Was the meeting accidental, 

spontaneous, arranged? How long did they date before

he proposed? Where did they get married? How long

were they married before she had my older sister?

What did he help build as a carpenter (besides the

Museum of the City of New York?). What was her

favorite color? Flower? Song? Pre-TV radio show?

Which members of my family were lost during the

Holocaust? During the pogroms? Did any of them

make the Aliyah to Israel? Who were my living relatives?

Where did they live? What did they do? Why were we

and they so distant? 

Why did she have me 10 years after my second sister?

Was she happy when I was born? Did she feel too old

to care for a baby again? Is it true that she almost

aborted me but changed her mind literally at the final

moment?

Then there are the closer queries to my toddler self:

What did her voice sound like? What did her touch

feel like? Her scent? Her presence? Beliefs: Did she

light Shabbas candles? Did he attend synagogue 

regularly when he was much younger and she was

still a vital presence in our lives? Afterthoughts:

What was his favorite opera? Why did he switch from

being a builder to owning a store? The ethereal gems:

What would they feel about the man I have become,

the woman I married, the children and grandchildren

I had – – – and how little my progeny know about them?

One final question: Why did I wait too late to ask?

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 160 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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July 7, 2025 · 7:30 am

Repairing the World with Chicken Soup

by Barbara Krasner (Somerset, NJ)

Boil chicken bones and chicken parts with water, parsnip, dill, carrot, and celery in a pot larger than your firstborn. Ladle the soup into a bowl and add Goodman’s fine egg noodles if it’s Shabbos or handmade lokshen if it’s Pesach. Form dense matzoh balls with your hands. It’s all right if they’re misshapen. So is the world. Should the matzoh balls sink to the bottom of the pot and your stomach, it’s okay. They’ll soak up the golden liquid that soothes all that ails you and the world. Tikkun olam. 

Having kosher chicken soup from your mama’s stove is like no other. Better than the best kosher deli. Because it contains love like your mama’s kiss on your keppele. You’re all right, it’s the Sabbath, time to end one week and start another fresh and clean. The broth will clear your head, clear all mistakes, fill you up so you can curl up under your featherbed all cozy, warm, and loved.

And maybe this is the best of all. Knowing that your mama learned how to make the soup from her mama, Rayzel Entel, who learned it from her mama, Esther Taube Drewno, who learned it from her mama, Chaja Rojza Mularzewicz, who learned it from her mama, Buna Etla Przestreleniec, who learned it from her mama, Ruchla Herszkowna of no last name, born at the turn of the nineteenth century in Brok, Poland. You are a link in the chain doling out the remedy to repair the world a spoonful at a time.


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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