Tag Archives: family

June 15, 2026 · 7:30 am

Goodbye Again, Aunt Lens

by Elliot Zashin (Merrillville, IN)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5 Comments

Filed under American Jewry, Family history, history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

May 4, 2026 · 7:30 am

How Hebrew Jewelry Became My Family’s Legacy

Esh Hadaya (Jerusalem, Israel)

I grew up in Jerusalem, where my father, Baruch Hadaya, made Hebrew words shine. At his workbench, with the hum of the Jewish Quarter outside his window. At first, it was a simple silver ring engraved with the words Gam Ze Ya’avor — “This too shall pass.” It was meant for a friend going through a hard time, but it struck a chord with the stream of students, soldiers, and travelers who wandered into his shop. Before long, he was engraving biblical verses, lines from S.Y. Agnon, and phrases whispered in prayer, each one hand-lettered in Hebrew and then etched into silver and gold.

For my father, this was never only craftsmanship. It was a way of spreading the holiness of our language — letter by letter, word by word. He believed Hebrew carried a kind of spiritual charge, that the letters themselves could uplift, comfort, and connect a person to something eternal. For many visitors, their Hadaya piece wasn’t just jewelry; it became a personal amulet, a reminder of faith and resilience they could carry with them anywhere in the world.

As a child, I didn’t just watch this happen — I absorbed it. I saw how someone would walk into our shop carrying a burden and leave with something in their pocket or around their neck that made their shoulders sit higher. It taught me that being a Jew isn’t only about a synagogue’s ritual, it can also be about the quiet rituals we make in everyday life — wrapping tefillin in the morning, yes, but also turning a phrase of Torah into something that rests against your heart.

Over the years, my father’s dream was for all of us — my two brothers, my mother, and me — to work together in the family shop. He didn’t live to see that dream fully realized. But in the way of other tzadikim who plant seeds they never see sprout, his vision is now our reality. We engrave the same verses he did, tell the same stories he told, and pass Hebrew into the hands of new generations, one piece of jewelry at a time.

His legacy is more than the thousands of rings, necklaces, and bracelets scattered across the world — it’s the way he taught us to carry Hebrew, to wear it, and to let it shape our Jewish lives. For me, it’s impossible to separate my own Jewish identity from this work, because it’s through this work that I learned the power of our language, our history, and our small, beautiful way to keep both alive.

Esh Hadaya is a singer, songwriter, and world traveler who manages the family’s worldwide business as the spokesperson and IT manager of Hadaya Jewelry, the Jerusalem studio founded by his father, the late master engraver and storyteller Baruch Hadaya. In the studio, Esh carries on Baruch’s beloved storytelling, gathering visitors to share the origins of treasured quotes, designs, and the Jerusalem spirit behind each hand-engraved piece. Through words and craft, he continues Hadaya’s mission to spread Hebrew wisdom and handmade love across the globe. To visit Hadaya Jewelery, check out the studio’s website: https://hadayajewelry.com/

1 Comment

Filed under Family history, Israel Jewry, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 5, 2025 · 7:30 am

The Miter Box

by Ron Linden (Pittsburgh, PA)

“May their memory be for a blessing.” This Jewish invocation is pronounced when a loved one passes. It serves to comfort and remind us that the departed will continue to bless us with their presence as we remember who they were and what they did. Sometimes, such a blessing can take an odd form. Like that of a miter box.

A miter box-and-saw is a simple yet frustrating contraption that allows the user to cut wood or metal at a precise angle. Usually this is done to let the pieces fit together; for example, in the ceiling molding whose ends must be cut at the proper angles so the pieces can blend at the corners. A miter box-and-saw makes that possible.

In theory.

In practice, it takes the ability to conceptualize how the pieces fit together and even more important, the ability to handle the saw, the box and the wood simultaneously.  Of all the Jewish males in the world, an estimated 75% think they can do it. But a long concealed yet scientifically scrupulous test of the Jewish men in my family showed that exactly one could do so: my brother-in-law Jules.

Jules was one-of-a-kind. He was the first “married-in” to join our family when he wed my sister.  He embodied all the best qualities you would want in a new sibling—good humor, caring, respect, and understanding when his make-out sessions with my sister were interrupted by one of us.  He was extraordinarily and spontaneously generous with his possessions, his time, and his skills. The miter box proves it.

Some years ago our family moved to Pittsburgh and, like many in the city, bought an old house.  Windows, roofing, plumbing, kitchen–all needed attention. As a plumber and carpenter, I was more of a college professor. Jules, however, was a stereotype buster. He was a Jewish guy who knew which end of the hammer to use.  He was the Sandy Koufax of home repair.

But his skills are only part of the story. He and my sister visited us often in Pittsburgh and whenever they came, Jules fixed or built things in our house. He could do this and—to be honest—was a guest who could not sit still and be “entertained.” He had to do things while he visited and our old house provided a rich playground. Knowing this, he always brought the tools he would need—including a miter box.

Jules not only brought the miter box-and-saw to cut the molding strips, but he actually used it correctly without littering the basement with “first drafts.”  He was a one-person episode of “This Old House,” but that was only part of the story . Upon leaving, Jules would typically give us many of the tools he brought with him (probably hopeful of my potential). One of these was the miter box.  

Over the years it lay mysterious and unused as a tool.  But it glowed as a symbol of both my brother-in-law’s multifaceted talents and his expansive generosity. Now, more than a decade after his passing, when I see that miter box I feel the power of Jules’ energy, re-experience his nature, and see the many things he did with us and for our family. This curious contraption, this miter box, is a physical symbol of his generous spirit. In other words, it is–and remains–a memory and a blessing to those left behind.

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

3 Comments

Filed under American Jewry, Family history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,