Tag Archives: being Jewish

April 20, 2026 · 7:30 am

How My Father Shaped My Jewishness

By Herbert Munshine (Great Neck, NY)

My father never called me by what I call

my American name.

I was never Herbert, Herbie, Herb or even,

as a Scottish fellow teacher used to call me

during my time in West Africa for the Peace Corps,

Bertie. To my dad, I was always a very guttural “Chaim.”

I never questioned his choice.

(A Herb by any other name….)

To my teachers, my friends, my sisters,

I was Herb or Herbie but to my dad, I was consistently

Chaim. It was good and even comforting to be addressed

that way by him. In mature retrospection, I realize that

his use of the Hebrew name gave me my Jewish identity.

It’s as if he used the name to remind me of who I am:

a Jewish male, a descendant of a proud people,

a member of a not-so-massive group who love peace,

education, community, ambition;

a never-ending congregation whose members

represent the sacred holiness of life —

even in the face of constant enmity.

All this emanated from a name that has always

carried with it a truly deep meaning in the simple

yet complex translation: “Life!” In my final maturity,

as I reflect, even against my will,

I occasionally stumble onto wisdom

and realize the gentle options which

he offered up to me: Temple Emanuel visits

for major holidays, after-school Hebrew culture classes,

public school Hebrew language classes

(I won the Golden Ayin and was President

of the Hebrew Culture Club), two agonizing visits to

Jewish cemeteries. Even in the presence of death, I —

Chaim (my soul hears echoes of my father’s voice

together with a whisper of assurance from my mother) —

even in the midst of humbly resting Jewish souls

gone from one kind of community to

a much more peaceful one —

I am my father’s Chaim.

I am my lifetime definition

of a Jewish life!

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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April 6, 2026 · 7:30 am

Shabbat

by Penny Perry (Fallbrook, CA)

My six-year-old granddaughter

comes home from school

and declares, “Jesus saved me.”

My four-year-old granddaughter

echoes, “Jesus.”

“I need to tell them who we are,”

my daughter says.

My daughter found Judaism on her own.

I’m a Jew with Buddhist tendencies.

I pray to God and escort live spiders

from the shower to the grass.

My daughter gathers flour, honey,

eggs, oil, sugar, and yeast,

pours them in a mixer. The mixer hums.

She hums, lets the dough rise,

rolls the dough out.

She’s beautiful in her pink dress

and shawl, her hair tied back,

one loose curl.

She shapes the dough into four braids

and weaves them into a loaf.

She brushes the loaf with an egg wash,

bakes the bread to a golden brown.

She tells her daughters that all over

the world at sundown on Shabbat Jewish women

light candles. The candles she picks

are small with tiny flames. She places

each candle in a glass and puts them

on the cupboard. Each girl will have a candle of her own.

My daughter shows her daughters her book

of prayers, her Hebrew name embossed

on the cover. She says a prayer

in a language her girls have never

heard before. She asks them to close

their eyes and picture God,

says God loves them and will keep them safe.

I don’t tell my daughter that a friend

carries her flour and honey,

eggs and oil to the synagogue, 

where police in uniforms holster

their Glocks, guard the temple,

so my friend can bake and worship

in peace.

My granddaughters stand in their dresses,

their eyes closed.

I picture them as grown up mothers praying

in their kitchens at sundown.

I wipe my eyes, breathe in the scent of baking bread.

Penny Perry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize six times, by six different publishers. Garden Oak Press has published two of her poetry books, Santa Monica Disposal and Salvage and Woman with Newspaper Shoes. Her poetry has appeared in many publications, including Earth’s Daughters, Lilith, Poetry International, San Diego Poetry Annual, Paterson Literary Review, Mid-Atlantic Review, and Limestone Circle. Her novel Selling Pencils and Charlie was a finalist in the San Diego Book Awards. She was the prose editor at Knot Literary Magazine for ten years. In the early 1970’s, she was one of the first female screenwriting fellows at the American Film Institute; a screenplay she wrote there became a film on PBS. 

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August 4, 2025 · 7:30 am

A Cultural Jew

by Herbert Munshine (Great Neck, NY)

I am a cultural Jew, a result of my upbringing.

I am not religious in terms of doctrine, attending

synagogue or following the rules of Sabbath or

the strictly kosher culture. Still, I’ve never thought

of myself as anything but Jewish. 

The religion has a magnetic hold on me. 

I felt this way most potently when I was dating 

the woman who became my girlfriend, my wife, 

and, finally, my much more than significant other. 

She came from a kosher life, a family that celebrated 

holy days and attended synagogue … if you’ll excuse 

the play on words …  religiously. 

I was not a smooth fit, not the final piece of a sacred

jigsaw puzzle. It took much flexibility and patience 

for them to welcome me into the fold, a little like a 

shepherd embracing the prodigal lost sheep … but 

in time it happened, and there was a wedding which was

instructive to this somewhat ill-fitting member of

the congregation.

I recall with fondness seeing so many happy faces,

standing under a chuppah for the first and only time,

breaking the glass. At that time, to me, a rabbi was a

rabbi. But I later learned that the rabbi who said magical

words that united me and my ever-after wife was special. 

He’d helped liberate Buchenwald and had supervised 

the start of new lives for Elie Wiesel and a thousand other 

orphans … and this night he was leading me and my bride 

to our own new life.

I am now in my eighties and remain a cultural Jew,

but I say with pride that I am as Jewish as I can be.

I show all Jews respect, love learning, try to harm no one.

I stand as tall as my fellow Jews. I look upon all Jews

as children of HaShem. I know my place in the scheme

of Judaism and am sincere in my love of all the tribes.

And when the time arrives, I will sit among my ancestors 

and I will be quite comfortable and proud of the life I led.

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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May 26, 2025 · 7:30 am

Cossacks

by Rich Orloff (New York, NY)

I was raised in a middle-class home

In a middle-class neighborhood

Safe and secure

But raised with the fear

That the Cossacks might be standing outside our door

Ready to rape and kill everyone inside

This was never spoken aloud, of course

It was planted wordlessly

My parents never intended to give me this gift

It was simply how they approached life

My mother, born in Belarus

Trained as a little girl where to hide in their little house

If and when the Cossacks came

Her family left in the middle of the night

Telling nobody

Erasing themselves from the world they lived in

My father, born in Chicago

The son of immigrants

A mother from Poland who never learned to read or write

Or show warmth

A father from Ukraine whose only advice to his son was

Never show fear

As you’ve probably guessed

The Cossacks never stood outside our door

But they had already successfully invaded

The souls of my parents

I learned how to protect myself

And have been prepared for annihilation ever since

I share this with you

Not so you will pity me

But so you know who I am

And if, when we meet

I treat you like you may be a Cossack in disguise

I apologize for not seeing who you are

Rich Orloff writes both poems and plays.  His poems have been published in The Poet, Fragments (published by T’ruah), and Fresh Words magazines, and they’ve been presented at churches and synagogues, performed in theaters and schools, read at meditation and yoga groups, and spoken at events both lofty and intimate.  Rich’s plays include the Purim-themed musical comedy Esther in the Spotlight (performed so far in New York, Miami, Toronto and Tel Aviv), the comedic revue OY! (over 50 productions in the United States – and one in Bulgaria), and many more, of all lengths, styles and subjects.  Rich’s plays have had over two thousand performances on six continents – and a staged reading in Antarctica.  More at www.richorloff.com. 

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January 20, 2025 · 7:30 am

Self-Exile

by Herbert Munshine (Great Neck, NY)

To me, a synagogue should be 

an exclamation point, 

standing tall and straight, 

reflecting strength and confidence 

but, instead, it is a question mark, swirling 

and broadcasting insecurity. 

The confusion brought to me by

the Hebrew chanting and the davening 

saddens me, for I feel excluded amidst

the longing to belong, to share the unity

and the compelling desire to recognize 

our attachment and connection 

to our Greater Power. I am conflicted, 

ultimately lost. 

Even so, I feel an urge to walk inside,

to join the others who have worn 

the Magen David draped over their hearts, 

but I recognize that the ancient language 

spoken is a code, a kind of price 

of relevant admission, that excludes 

the likes of me. 

I find no Rosetta Stone handed down 

from Mount Sinai that will lead me 

to a satisfying translation of the wisdom 

which will assure me that I’ve found a home 

among those strangers. So I reluctantly eschew

entrance, step away from the well-constructed but

foreboding question mark, that of Chagall-like 

technicolor windows and impressive wooden doors 

and pews and platform, and stumble hesitatingly away 

on my solitary path, thinking of the lonely road 

through Jewishness that I have followed because 

He took my mother just one week before 

my 10th birthday many years ago. I dwell 

within an exile self-imposed. I try 

to fight it but I am left to wonder

just what might have been . . . .


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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January 13, 2025 · 7:30 am

One of Job’s Daughters

by Nina Zolotow (Berkeley, CA)

I normally would have found him attractive—he was handsome and fit, and middle-aged like me—but I was walking alone down a quiet residential street, and he was following me on his bicycle saying,

“Look at you! Aren’t you sweet? You’re ethnic—look at that hair. Is that natural?”

So, instead, I felt an immediate surge of familiar fear, that same fear most women feel when a man on the street is coming on too strong. I didn’t reply to him and just kept on walking. 

The afternoon seemed absurdly beautiful, with a clear cerulean sky and golden sunlight pouring down on the Sycamore trees and the big old houses with their lush spring gardens. Then I noticed another man—he was sitting on a chair on his front porch watching the two of us—and I heard him call out,

“Hey!”

Hearing his voice partly reassured me because I no longer felt alone, but it also confirmed my fear that maybe there really was something unsafe about my situation. The man on the bicycle kept on following me, and now he said, 

“You’re either Mediterranean or Hebrew—am I right?”

Then my heart stopped cold because this was the first time in my life a stranger had approached me on the street wondering if I was Jewish. I wasn’t even sure what it meant that he was doing it, especially because the man asking me was Black. And then the other man, who was still sitting on his front porch, called out again,

“Hey!”

while I kept on walking and saying nothing. But even with the man on the porch yelling at him, the man on the bicycle pulled up alongside of me and looked into my face. Then, sounding pleased, he said,

“You’re ethnic, all right. You’re one of Job’s daughters, aren’t you?”

One of Job’s daughters? Was that his Biblical way of saying he was sure I was Jewish? Or did he mean something else by that? In the Old Testament, Job’s daughters were the beautiful ones—the most beautiful in all the land. 

Of course, I knew by then that there were some men who particularly favored Jewish women. “They’re sexy,” they would say, “spoiled little Jewish-American Princesses, but sexy and intelligent.” Or, as a Chinese-American man I used to know once said to me, “They’re all the fun of a woman of color but with the skin color of a white woman.” 

But whether calling me one of Job’s daughters was meant to be a compliment or not, it was extra scary having a man add this “you’re a Jew” thing to the typical harassment of a woman walking down the street thing.

Since the man on the porch—a white man, who looked on the younger side—had not bothered to get up from his chair despite his yelling, I quickly thought about how I might extricate myself from this situation. I said,

“I’m sorry, but I’m on way to see the doctor.”

The man on the bicycle then changed his tone, saying, with concern,

“Oh, are you sick?”

Even though I was just headed to an annual checkup, I said,

“Yes. Yes, I’m sick.”

After that he turned his bicycle around and cycled away from me, back in the direction we had both come from, leaving me alone.

When I entered the doctor’s office a few minutes later, I asked the receptionist if I could borrow a pen and paper because while I waited for my appointment I wanted to write down everything that had just happened. 

I never wanted to forget that if something like that—being harassed on the street because I looked “Hebrew”—could happen to me in my hometown, one of the most progressive communities in the United States, Berkeley, California, it could happen anywhere.

Nina Zolotow just loves to write, and she has been doing it for her entire adult life. Currently she is writing creative non-fiction and experimental fiction/poetry, which you can find on her blog Delusiastic!, which has both brand new and older works. She has also written or co-written four books on yoga (seeyogafortimesofchange.com) as well as being the Editor in Chief and writer for the Yoga for Healthy Aging blog for 12 years. Before that there was 20 years of writing instructional manuals for the software industry, including many books for programmers. And somewhere in there was an MFA from San Francisco State in Creative Writing. All of that taught her how to write simply and clearly when needed but also to go crazy with words when that seems right. 

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August 5, 2024 · 7:30 am

An Unexpected Encounter

By Julie Brandon (Downers Grove, IL)

An unexpected encounter at a grocery store

In Downers Grove on a Sunday morning

Pushing my cart down an aisle

Stopping to grab something from a shelf

A young woman and her mother take my cart

Calling after them, I hear them laugh at their mistake

Time stops as they eye my Star of David necklace

And I their hijabs

For a brief terrible moment, we wonder

Threat or friendly strangers

This

This is how fears grows in a Midwestern grocery store

Longing to reassure them, I hurry away to buy a carton of eggs

Julie Brandon is a poet, playwright and liturgical lyricist. She began writing in earnest in her fifties. Her work has been published in Corner Bar Magazine, Awakenings Review, Bewildering Stories, Poetica Magazine, Mini Play Magazine, Fresh Words,  “Am Yisrael Chai Anthology” vol. 1 & 2 and “Writing of Love During War: Poems” among others. Julie’s short plays and monologues have been published and produced in the US and Great Britain. She has taken up the baritone ukulele because that’s what all the cool kids are doing. If you’d like to read more of Julie’s work, you can check out her new collection of poems that she’s written since 10/7: My Tears, Like Rain

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July 29, 2024 · 7:30 am

“Does God Have to Take Attendance?”  *

* Author’s note: This poem was inspired by Mayim Bialik, a Modern Orthodox Jew, star of “The Big Bang Theory,” whose character Amy said, “I don’t object to the concept of a deity, but I am baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance.”

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

In my constant back-and-forth with God,

throwing questions up at the sky,

I do not expect answers,

but would be appeased by some sign

that my queries are at least received.

What if I obey 612 rules instead of 613?

What if I hold one Seder, not two?

What if I do not go to shul

each and every Saturday?

Does God have to take  attendance?

I have a lot more than Four Questions.

Do I need the decisions of rabbis

to tell me how to run my life?

Do I need the voices of the congregation

to emphasize the fact I am a Jew?

Does a faithful adherence to ritual

bring me closer to the presence of God?

Does He even care?

God, it’s me, Mel.

Are you even listening?

I am standing outside the synagogue

wondering if my attendance is required.

Is it mandatory I attend, or is it good

enough that I remain standing humbly,

asking my questions in Your sight?

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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July 22, 2024 · 7:30 am

A Home With Dignity

by Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca (Calgary, Canada)

(A poem about belonging)

 I want six million Jews back to their homes

To their hat shops, their loved ones, and their bright mornings,

To awake in their beds with soft sheets and warm slippers

To put their feet into, and cross the threshold to kitchens 

Smelling warm with the baking of Challah bread.

I want sisters to whisper to each other from bunk beds

Scurrying up and down the ladder to exchange places

Laughing without fear of being muffled,

Like we did many nights with sleeping parents who

Unaware of our sibling shenanigans, dreamed in peace.

I want six million Jews to watch the butterflies 

Flitting across a kind sun that warmed their hearts

With promises of hope, of births, graduations, weddings 

Dressed in satin gowns with silver stars, the yellow ones 

Out of stock, discontinued, banned forever.

I want six million Jews to look out at the fields with cattle grazing

From train windows, with the fresh air blowing on their faces

Going on a family holiday to the beach with free minds

Surfing the waves, swimming with the dolphins,

Returning to their homes to wash off the sand from their happy feet

To wear shoes of the right size with no holes in them.

 In a career spanning over four decades, Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca has taught English in Indian colleges, AP English in an International School nestled in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains in India, and French and Spanish in private schools in Canada. Her poems are featured in various journals and anthologies, including the Sahitya Akademi Journal Of Indian Literature, the three issues of the Yearbooks of Indian Poetry in English, Verse-Virtual, The Madras Courier, and the Lothlorien Poetry Journal, among others. Kavita has authored two collections of poetry, Family Sunday and Other Poems and Light of The Sabbath. Her poem ‘How To Light Up a Poem,’ was nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2020.  Her poems celebrate Bombay, the city of her birth, Nature, and her Bene Israel Indian Jewish heritage. She is the daughter of the late poet Nissim Ezekiel. 

Author’s note: Challah is a special bread in Jewish cuisine, usually braided and typically eaten on ceremonial occasions such as Shabbat and major Jewish holidays. Ritually-acceptable challah is made of dough from which a small portion has been set aside as an offering. The word is Biblical in origin. (Wikipedia)

(Editor’s Note: “A Home with Dignity was published in “Light of the Sabbath,” the author’s chapbook, as well as in the anthology “Heartstrings,” an anthology edited by Sanjula Sharma). It also appeared in the 25th Annual Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Poetry Issue of Poetry Super Highway, April 2023, and is reprinted here with permission of the author.)

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June 10, 2024 · 7:30 am

The Scream of a Post-October 7th Jew

by Jessica Ursell (Campania, Italy)

in bed
cold beads 
of sweat 
catch me 
still in the snare
of my nightmare

back at the home
of my childhood
walking past 
the front door
realizing 
it wasn’t quite 
completely closed

I went to close it
on the other side
they were pushing 
screaming, shoving
with such force

struggling
I tried to push back 
but they were so many

coming for the Jew

spewing incoherent vitriol
their rhythmic battering
sounded the beat of
of an ancient hate

I tried to scream
for in my dream
my son was in the room
my brother used to have

but like my brother
my son‘s door was closed
with music playing
so he couldn’t hear
my strangled screams

dazed and in disbelief
inhuman strength surging
like those stories
of desperate mothers
lifting cars
off the helpless bodies 
of their children

I shoved the door closed
despite the heaving mob
pounding from outside
so hard to click 
that little lock closed

in suburban New York

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 public speaker against antisemitism 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,” “Standing Up for the Voiceless: My Fight with Royalty in Anne Frank’s House,” and “What My Zayda Taught Me About Tikkun Olam“ were published by The Jewish Writing Project in July 2022, October 2022, and January 2024 respectively. Jessica‘s poems, “Sedimented Rock” and “Climbing Vesuvius in Stilettos,” were published by Writing In A Woman’s Voice in November 2023 and May 2024. Jessica’s poem, “A Still-Life Collage of Lost Objects,” appears in the February 2024 print issue of Down in the Dirt magazine as well as online (v. 216 Scars Publications). Multiple military audiences, most recently the United States Navy, Sixth Fleet, have heard Jessica speak about the importance of never being a bystander to evil which she believes is the fundamental lesson of the Holocaust.

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