Tag Archives: Jewish identity

July 13, 2026 · 5:30 am

The Proof is in the Pilaf

by Jahan Khan (Melbourne, Australia)

It’s sometime in Autumn, 2023, and I’m at Jeffery’s Bookshop, utterly moved to tears by a cookbook of all things. The shop attendant checks in on me, and I look at her and say, “My family had these recipes, just like these… I just wasn’t expecting to find them here.”  I then turned the book over to look at the hefty price tag of $65.  

“Oh, this is quite expensive,” I say with a sombre tone, moved by discovering one of my mum’s favorite recipes for pilaf, a Central Asian rice dish that is slow cooked in meat broth.  

She quickly responded “Well, yes, but! It looks like there’s a real connection for you here.” 

“Yeah alright… this is really special,” I say in a somewhat affirmative tone.  

The book was the 25th anniversary edition of the cookbook The Book of Jewish Food. The main title itself is quite ordinary, but what makes it stand out from any other Jewish cookbook is its subtitle: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day. The author, Claudia Roden, is a Jew of Middle Eastern background, and what began as a project to document recipes of her own family and community morphed into an ambitious globe-trotting culinary adventure. She didn’t just capture the recipes, but she captured histories, stories, and traditions of lesser-known Jewish communities in the Diaspora, communities that have existed in the unlikeliest corners of the globe, everywhere from Africa to China.   

Of interest to me personally was the story of the Jews of India. The three Jewish communities of India each have their origin story, some even tracing their lineage back to biblical narratives. These stories, at times mythological in nature, were passed down like treasured inheritance. A more straightforward (and grounded) explanation, in terms of how Jews even made it to India and the multiple migrations in the centuries that followed, is quite simple: the Silk Road.

The Silk Road provided a connection to the world beyond and allowed the exchange of goods, knowledge, and innovations. Importantly, it gave people and communities an opportunity to carve out new homes and start over. For the Jewish people, this was the road they hoped would lead them to finding new homes and identities in a world that didn’t want them, or at best, tolerated their existence conditionally.  

Among them were the Jews living in Persia (i.e. Babylon) where significant Jewish expression, writing, and religious tradition emerged. The Jewish-Persian connection runs deep, from foundational biblical narratives to contemporary cultural norms and practices. Today this once rich legacy barely survives as a marginalized and persecuted minority in places like Tehran, but in the ancient world the Jews there were once a formidable presence. 

Long before the recent persecutions in Tehran, the experience of Jews walking on eggshells can be found in biblical accounts, most notably in the novella-style and almost theatrical story of Queen Esther. As attitudes towards Jews fluctuated like pharmaceutical stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, so too did the urgency of migrations out of Persia. These occurred several times during the 16-17th century, when Persian Jews travelled along the Silk Road and entered Northern India via Kashmir. The first time I heard any of this was as a child from my maternal grandfather. According to him and the traditions passed down to him from his forbearers, this was the community where we came from.  

My late maternal grandfather was the first source of my Jewish education. He knew everything from the people to the customs, and how it all traced to the present day, and he was quite dedicated to keeping these stories alive and would repeat them often with pride. Since his passing, his children distanced themselves from their connection to ancient Israel via Babylon, and this is largely due to political tensions and deep antisemitism which escalates to this day. It took me a long time to find the motivation, and I dare say courage, to write any of it down.  

Even though my family distanced themselves from the stories, the habits handed down from ancient times persist. Shortly after I was born, my mother had me circumcised at 16 days young (the Jewish custom is 8 days) where most other families in that region would wait until the boy was around 10 years of age. Then there was the food. Many of our recipes avoided mixing meat and dairy and even cautioned against shellfish. These could be coincidences, but to me it always felt like remnants of the people we once were, where customs had been passed down not as religious dogma but simply as family norms in a multi-generational game of Chinese Whispers.  

In my mother’s household it felt like it was pilaf all day, every day. As a child, my sisters and I would absolutely loathe this dish. Decades later as an adult I can appreciate it more, but it’s still not a meal I would go out of my way to eat. Still, the nostalgia is there, and the sheer frequency and tendency with which we consumed it in our household was unlike any other family, and so to find it featured so prominently in Claudia Roden’s book as a staple of Indian/Persian Jewish diet really brought the many fragmented pieces of my identity together. (In the same cookbook I discovered a hideous lentil rice dish that was often prepared in my home to remedy an upset stomach, and Roden’s book mentioned the exact same thing.) 

***

On August 17, 2024, I attended an event at Glen Eira Town Hall (Melbourne, Victoria) called Of Ghosts and Golems, an opening night gala to launch Melbourne Jewish Book Week. It was Marina Benjamin’s story (explored in her memoir The Last Days in Babylon) that moved me in a way I wasn’t prepared for.  

Marina Benjamin talked about her Iraqi Jewish family, and how it was difficult for her to connect with her Iraqi heritage for most of her life. There were certain mannerisms and behaviors in her family that troubled her during her childhood in London, and which made her feel less normal among her European Jewish peers. Speaking now with a deeper appreciation of her roots and context, she was able to come to terms with what it all meant even if it didn’t fully extinguish the hurt her inner child continues to carry.  

She spoke about her family’s tendency to downplay achievements and importance, which hit close to home for me, too. My family was much the same way with me, to the point where even to this day I carry this lingering wound of feeling invisible in most settings; to be my own harshest critic, and to downplay or outright hide my achievements. I still struggle to advocate for myself. It’s a deeply rooted conditioning from childhood, but as it turns out for both me and Marina, it was a deeply rooted custom going back generations… centuries even.  

Marina explained in her talk that these behaviors came from a superstition about the evil eye. For Jews living in the diaspora, especially those who were at the mercy of the fluctuating tolerances to their existence, the obsession with this evil eye was more about survival. To not be seen and heard meant they wouldn’t draw attention as a marginalized and persecuted minority. 

Hearing her expound all her trauma in its rich historical context, I thought to myself “Oh… so that’s why it was like that at home.” It felt like a moment of closure, a moment of validation, and the beginning of a long-overdue healing journey.  

I feel now like my Jewish story is still unfolding and yet, whenever I least expect it, I find new clues and evidence for all the fuzzy fragments. It is in these moments that the fog lifts a little and the compartmentalized memories become a tangible part of my Jewish identity. Advances in both historical research and DNA testing no doubt verified the journey of my ancestors, but it is my personal connection that feels more real than any cold piece of scientific fact. These were the stories that shaped my ancestors and the person I am today, driving my continued sense of wonder as I explore the world and the depths of my identity. True treasure is knowing who you are.

Jahan is a lecturer and writer. He has also been a video game critic for over 20 years. He loves to engage with the Melbourne Jewish community through cultural education and learning. You can learn more about Jahan by visiting his author website: https://virtuacritic.bearblog.dev 

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June 29, 2026 · 7:30 am

It’s Been My Experience

by Herbert Munshine (Great Neck, NY)


It’s been my experience 

that various congregations 

often feel they are the true Jews

and look down upon other divisions

of Judaism as not being holy enough. 

I find this disappointing, given 

the abundance of non-Jews

throughout history — Romans, 

Egyptians, Russians, and so many 

Europeans (from the Inquisition to 

the Holocaust) who have unjustifiably 

hated Jews of any and of all

denominations.

What I am saying is that

we have had enough enemies 

without attacking each other’s version

of our faith and the practices 

we share in our altered ways.

Why can’t we respect and cherish

each other’s version of Judaism 

instead of tearing it down

and learn to live with the varieties 

of Judaism, not just one?

Isn’t G-d’s synagogue large enough 

for all of us?

Herbert Munshine grew up in the Bronx and graduated from C.C.N.Y. with both a B.S. in Education and a Master’s Degree in English. You can find his baseball poetry on Baseball Bard where he has had more than 100 poems published, and where he was recently inducted into that site’s Hall of Fame. He lives with his wife in Great Neck, NY.

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May 11, 2026 · 7:30 am

The Seven Ages of Growing Up Jewish

by Kayla Anderson (Irvine, CA)

(a Jewish twist on Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man” monologue)

1. You’re snuggled tight in mommy’s arms as she lights the menorah candles. You tear off wrapping paper with chubby fingers, bouncing up and down with joy at the sight of your shiny new toy. Before you know it, the moon is smiling down on you and mommy is rocking you back and forth, singing gently. The familiar melody of Hatikvah lulls you to sleep.

2. Today at preschool you made a magen david out of popsicle sticks, leaving you sticky with glue. Now you’re standing on the bimah with your classmates, singing. Your dress itches a little, and you’ve forgotten most of the lyrics, but at the sight of your parents beaming at you from the pews, you can’t help but smile.

3. Hanukkah rolls around again, and you’re finally old enough to light the candles all by yourself. At school the next day, you bring leftover latkes for lunch and tell your friends about the special holiday, but they look at you with confusion. “You don’t celebrate Christmas?” they ask, wide-eyed. “No,” you mumble. Shame burns hot on your cheeks. 

4. Eventually, you realize that being Jewish can feel lonely. While the rest of your girl scout troop decorates ornaments, you just sit silently. Your fourth grade teacher says, “Have a great Christmas break!” and then glances at you and corrects herself: “Sorry—winter break.” And no matter how many times you remind your friend’s parents that you’re Jewish, they always ask, “How was church?” After a while, you get tired of correcting them, so you force a smile and say, “It was good.”

5. You’ve just turned thirteen, and after many months of practice, your big day—your bat mitzvah—is finally here. Nervousness and excitement war for dominance in your brain as you prepare to read from the Torah. You take a deep breath and look out into the crowd of friends and family, all of them here just for you. In this moment, you feel both the weight of responsibility and the liberation of independence. 

6. You’re older now, and you finally understand the duality of the Jewish experience. For every Shabbat service you attend is another antisemitic comment or Holocaust joke that makes its way onto your social media feed. For every precious memory made at Jewish sleepaway camp is another synagogue vandalized, broken into, attacked. So you buy a silver chai necklace and wear it proudly—the world can’t silence your Jewishness.

7. The rest of your Jewish life lies brightly ahead. Among many things you look forward to are your Birthright trip to Israel, your Jewish wedding, and—eventually—raising your children in a house filled with perfectly-crispy latkes and popsicle-stick magen davids. Growing up Jewish is a rollercoaster of highs and lows, but you know in your heart you wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Kayla Anderson is a high school senior and proud Reform Jew from California. Creative writing has always been one of her greatest passions, and she finds it immensely fulfilling to weave her Jewish identity into her work. She plans to pursue a career in education, where she can help children discover the joys of language and literature. One day, she hopes to fulfill her longtime dream of publishing a book, and hopes her work inspires, resonates, and sparks joy.

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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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November 24, 2025 · 7:30 am

Chana and Rafa

by Helene Berton (Centereach, NY)

Flipping over the tape, I clicked the play button and smiled when “Modern Love” came through my headphones. David Bowie was the best flying music, I decided. 

After finding the pack of gum in my overstuffed bag, I offered a stick to my mother and then unwrapped one for myself. While chewing exuberantly, I waited for my ears to snap, crackle and pop as we started our descent. Reluctantly, I clicked the stop button as the Sony Walkman couldn’t compete with the noise of the plane. “China Girl” would have to wait. China, my thoughts wandered, was the other side of the world. But then again, so was Israel, and that’s where we landed.

I looked at my mother. Even after the overnight flight, she was brimming with excitement. Why was this trip so important to her? 

*  *  * 

The girls with their machine guns slung across their backs startled me, gave me pause. I snapped a picture of them, lost in thought, winding to advance the film before taking another. 

Like a tourist, I was gaping at them as if an attraction. “Are they in the army?” I whispered to my mother.

“Yes, the IDF,” she replied as we walked down the bustling Tel Aviv street.

“I’m surprised so many girls want to join.”

“It’s mandatory. Everyone goes directly from high school into the military,” she explained to me.

Mandatory? I thought of myself after high school graduation planning my great escape to college. All the stress and drama of roommates, meal plans, and boyfriends dominated my life that summer before I left. I heard my voice complaining that I had to take the bus when most of my friends had cars of their own. Meanwhile, these girls were nonchalantly strolling along with their machine guns, chatting in the sunshine with their cups of coffee. I suddenly felt small.

*  *  * 

“Tell me again who they are?” I asked my mother as we sat down at the round table. The ceiling fan above us did little to cool the restaurant.

“My cousins.”

“How are they related to us?”

My mother looked at me for a moment longer than necessary. Maybe she had explained it already or assumed that I knew. “Your grandfather came to the United States from Latvia when the war broke out. His brother, Uncle Max, went to Israel. These are his daughters.”

I digested this information, trying to form the family tree in my mind. Having no first cousins of my own, I couldn’t relate very well. I felt disconnected, distracted by the heat. I squirmed in my seat, tempted to ask the waiter to turn up the AC. Looking around at the open windows and archways leading into the garden, I realized there was no air conditioning at all.

“That must be them.” My mother stood up as two older women entered the restaurant. 

I was surprised by their age, having pictured them younger. How were these women my mother’s cousins? Realizing that my grandparents had my mother late in life, I put it together. It was as if a generation was missing, but it did add up.

The introductions were made, complete with hugs and kisses which left me feeling awkward, bringing out the shyness I had battled since childhood. I did not know these women, after all. 

I sat quietly as the conversation swirled around me, looking at the food that the cousins had ordered for us. I picked at the unfamiliar meat and sauces presented to me, wishing for a slice of pizza and chips. My mind drifted to the shops we had passed in Tel Aviv as I made my mental list of who would be getting which souvenir. Maybe I would indulge in the boots I saw in the window display or even the leather jacket. I had some money saved from my new job.

Noticing my mother’s sudden look of sadness, I listened in, hoping to catch onto the conversation without embarrassment. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said, as I tried to pull up the dialogue that might still be hanging in the air or my recent memory. 

“Yes, he was killed in the war,” Chana said, looking serious. “He was my youngest.”

Her son? Killed in the war? I brushed aside all thoughts of shopping and started listening. I felt like I should say something.

“I’m so sorry,” I quietly offered condolences to my cousin. 

She looked at me then, and I couldn’t quite figure out the expression. Was it distaste or was I taking on a feeling of inadequacy? I felt like a spoiled child, and I didn’t like it.

After lunch we stepped out to the garden to take some photographs under the archways. I placed my hands on the cool limestone, letting my sense of touch help me file away the moment into my memory. My mother wrapped up the conversation with more hugs and kisses while I took in the views of the rolling countryside. It was quite beautiful just a short drive from Tel Aviv. I hadn’t expected such green lushness. But then again, I didn’t know what to expect, as I really hadn’t done any of the research.

*  *  * 

“Did you enjoy meeting the cousins?” my mother asked me in the cab as we rode back to the hotel.

“I did,” I forced out, with an overly high pitch to my voice. I hoped my mother didn’t notice. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the get together other than it gave me a lot to think about. I was ignorant on too many topics, falling short on contributing to the conversation. 

Looking down at my brightly polished nails and fringed boots despite the heat, I felt foolish. I looked at my mother who carried on a one-sided conversation with me and I started listening. For real.

*  *  * 

Present day…

I bring the photo album and carefully balance it on my mother’s lap as she sits in her wheelchair. My two sons sit on either side of her, their cell phones on their laps but remaining untouched for the moment. I see a glimpse into the future, the day when they both have children, possibly daughters, who would be cousins. How heartbreaking if they never know each other. I finally understand the dynamic of cousins.

They look onto the photos covered in sheets of plastic with their undivided attention. 

My mother points from face to face, announcing names questioningly. 

“Cousin Chana?” she asks. 

“Yes,” I smile encouragingly. 

“And Rafa?” 

“Yes, Rafa.” 

“And this lady?” She places a long fingernail on her own image. “Who is she?”

“That’s you,” I say, not for the first time that day.

Native New Yorker Helene Berton has returned to her love of writing after a long hiatus.  She has two short story collections, Away from Home ( https://a.co/d/czXOPef) and Beyond the Parallel (https://a.co/d/1SViCZj), available on Amazon. Currently, Helene is working on her first novella, Red Means Stop, and a children’s picture book, The Big Race. If you’d like to learn more about Helene and her work, visit https://heleneberton.wordpress.com .

Author’s Note: My story explores the dynamics between mother and daughter, a common theme in my writing.  It was inspired by and takes place during my first trip to Israel in 1987.  There is a bit of a naivety portrayed, which is how I felt as a young American girl visiting Israel (somewhat immature and self centered), but it was a wake-up call.  The trip changed my outlook, inspiring me to fall in love with the country.  I was fortunate enough to visit a second time several years later, and both my sons experienced Israel through Birthright.  It is my hope to return once again.

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June 23, 2025 · 7:30 am

My grandfather, Bubushi 

By Sophia Nourafshan (Los Angeles, California) 

My grandfather, Bubushi, is a man who wears his Jewish identity with pride, refusing to conceal it, regardless of the circumstances. My grandfather shared a painful incident he experienced, and the impact of his words has stayed with me ever since. It was a typical Saturday afternoon when he walked out of the synagogue, his blue kippah on, tzitzit hanging visibly, a siddur in one hand, and some chicken and rice from Shul in the other. As he walked toward the crosswalk, he saw a man sitting on the cold ground, shivering in ragged clothes, with a sign asking for money.

My grandfather, always looking for a chance to do a mitzvah, went over and slowly began placing the meal beside him. That’s when the man grabbed his wrist, looked him in the eye, and yelled, “You filthy Jew,” before punching him. I vividly remember the deep wave of upset that hit me when Bubushi initially told me about this. All I could think was, how could anyone treat him that way, simply because he is Jewish? But the next part of the story completely changed how I saw the situation.

Instead of reacting in anger or fear, I learned that my grandfather calmly placed the food beside the man, looked at him, and said softly, “Shabbat Shalom, and have a great rest of your day.” I could hardly believe it. I was told that he did not flinch. He did not feel the need to fight back nor defend himself. It struck me that what he did in order to perform a mitzvah was more powerful than any retaliation could ever be.

Hearing this story made me rethink how I approach life. I was always proud of my faith, but after hearing what my grandfather had done, I felt a deep connection to his act of kindness, one rooted in resilience. I now wear my Star of David every day, not just as a symbol, but as a reminder that I should not let fear or prejudice silence who I am. Walking with my grandfather to Shul every Saturday has become more meaningful as each step with him feels like a quiet statement of who we are and where we stand.

Bubushi has shown me that real strength comes from humility and kindness in a world that can sometimes be hostile. His example has shaped how I see myself, my faith, and the importance of standing tall, even when the world tries to knock you down. I have learned from him that dignity does not come from how others treat you but from how you choose to respond. Like him, I hope to embrace faith and resilience as the core of my identity, a testament to the strength that comes from knowing who I am and standing by it, no matter what. 

Sophia Nourfshan is a current senior at Milken Community High School. She writes: “I am fortunate to have two older brothers and wonderful parents who inspire me and set an example for me every day. From a young age, my parents instilled in me the importance of Judaism and the values that define us. This story is essential for me to share, as it reflects who I am and resonates with the challenges we are facing in today’s world. Judaism is a core part of my identity, and despite the antisemitism we encounter, I will continue to live proudly and authentically as a Jew. I hope my story can inspire others to stand up for their faith and respond courageously in the face of adversity.” 

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December 2, 2024 · 7:30 am

Dogtag

by Harriet Wolpoff (San Diego, CA)

A moment of panic

What’s that guy saying?

Can’t understand him 

He’s getting closer

He’s pointing at my chest

Is he a hater?

Oh, says he’s Israeli

Whew

He’s offering to help

Put my groceries 

In the car

Because

He saw my dogtag

I love him!

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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November 4, 2024 · 7:30 am

Baby-Boomer Blues

by Howard Wach (New York, NY)

I’m a baby-boomer, Bronx-born, a grandchild of immigrants from Poland and Lithuania, raised in a 1960s Long Island suburb, which was half Jewish and half other white ethnics, everyone newly migrated from city neighborhoods. I matured in the ‘70s, when Jew-barring (or Jew-counting) barriers collapsed across all kinds of American institutions. 

But sudden indifference to Jewish catastrophe and open Jew-hating—the post October 7 legacy—has pushed me and my boomer peers to revisit what we thought were rock-solid certainties. The last eight months changed everything.  

I’m a knowledgeable guy, a teacher, a scholar in my own modest way. But now I wonder what I’ve ever really known. History lulled me to sleep, then woke me with a klop. My everyday worries—money, family, health—have new company, a dangerous twist on the tribalism splintering our civil society. Suddenly, the hyphen connecting “Jewish-American” feels frayed, eroded, anything but certain. 

All my life that hyphen signaled a balance I had no reason to doubt. A birthright, if you will. It never felt conditional or one-sided.  

**********   

In 1906 Shai Wach, an 18-year-old immigrant from Warsaw, arrived in New York and renamed himself Charles. Eleven years later he returned to Europe, a doughboy drafted into the 77th infantry division, the “Melting Pot” division, a polyglot mix of immigrants from lower Manhattan. Charlie fought with the Lost Battalion in the Argonne Forest and returned to New York with a fistful of medals, his patriotism signed and sealed. He marched up Fifth Avenue with his old unit every Armistice Day for decades. Growing up in the Depression-era Bronx, my father Daniel, Charlie’s older son, absorbed the lessons of those parades. 

I never heard my grandfather talk about Israel. New York was his home. The United States was his homeland, and he had the medals to prove it. But his brother perished in Auschwitz (also never discussed); his sister disappeared forever into a wartime Polish convent. I suspect that like his Workmen’s Circle comrades, he had no personal Zionist convictions but believed that the Shoah made Israel necessary. Just not for him, or for his son, or for me. 

********** 

My father spoke more often about his World War II service as he aged. Before he became too frail to travel, he eagerly embarked on a veterans’ “Honor Flight” to visit war monuments in Washington. The day he died a biography of Churchill lay open on the magnifying reading device the VA had given him.  

I turned eighteen just as the Vietnam-era draft ended. A graduate of my high school was killed at Kent State. Some classmates sewed peace symbols on their jeans and joined antiwar protests. Others sneered at the “footprint of the American chicken” and enlisted the moment they could. My peacenik mother hated the war; my proud veteran father defended it. I didn’t know what I believed, but I acted the teenage antiwar hippie, singing along with Country Joe and the Fish and listening to Hendrix tear through the national anthem.  

It never occurred to me—or to anyone I knew—that Jewishness could have any relevance to that all-American strife. National identity was properly a civic affair. We all belonged to this country. I had no Zionist feelings, no desire to make aliyah. But I knew—even through the fog of adolescence—that Israel was a fulfillment, a source of ethnic pride heightened by the miraculous Six-Day War.  I grasped its importance and celebrated the victory, but we were Jewish Americans, secure in that solid identity, feeling no unsettling contradiction or tension. All the old barriers were falling. Wartime dissension aside, what could disturb our happy condition? 

**********

I have a different question now. What made me think I’d escape the history I studied and taught? I’m a lucky Jewish baby-boomer born into the post-Holocaust truce that sidetracked Jew-hating and enabled some of us to vault into corporate suites and institutional power. The truce has faltered for a while, but the October 7 aftermath blew it apart.  

We disappeared into benign, assimilated invisibility. Or so I thought. That dreamy moment in the American empire is over. The sudden disregard for Jewish lives unearthed my half-buried boomer memories: Charlie’s brutal, unspoken knowledge of genocide, my parents looking sideways at goyim, their memory of “Gentiles Only” warnings in employment and real estate ads. Blue numbers tattooed on the forearm of my friend Paul’s father. It all flooded back when I saw torn, defaced posters of Israeli hostages and heard noxious chants rising from massive rallies. I was rudely yanked back into history. 

The shock unleashed a stew of unwelcome emotions in me: anger at “progressives” who abandoned moral sense, who preach simple-minded theories of power, seduce the ignorant, and make Israel the centerpiece of global evil; anger at Israeli zealots who reinforce that corrosive lie—lunatic settlers running wild and the politicians who coddle them; fear for my children, who witness Jewishness embroiled in today’s American strife and may never recover the assurance that “Jewish-American” once meant, the hard-won allegiance my grandfather and father gifted to me. 

**********

In the 1980s I wrote a Ph.D dissertation at Brandeis University about civil society in nineteenth-century Britain. One day I was sitting with friends in a common room when a professor in the History Department, a brash and funny character, dropped by to share his latest insight. “Brandeis has a new theme song,” he announced, “a medley of Hatikvah and Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Then he laughed and walked away. 

Until recently the joke made playful, ironic Jewish sense. It fit perfectly at Brandeis, that model of postwar Jewish-American identity and ambition. In the last eight months I think of it more than any time in the last forty years. But its playfulness is gone, its irony soured. 

Here’s a sign of the times. Brandeis is recruiting Jewish students feeling displaced or frightened at campuses where keffiyehs are fashionable and Zionism is a seven-letter version of a four-letter word.  

That old joke isn’t funny at all anymore. 

Howard Wach is a semi-retired City University of New York academic. He’s written and published articles on educational technology and academic history in various journals, and now writes creative nonfiction and short stories. Palisades Review published his short humorous piece about not buying a time share. 

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September 2, 2024 · 7:30 am

Klari’s Cameo

by Ruth Zelig (New York, NY)

Author’s Note: For economic reasons, my father decided in 1958 that he, with my mother, and me at age eight, would leave Israel and migrate to South America where we would wait until the United States allowed us in (1967). His goal was to settle in the United States, but American immigration quotas were too strict, in essence barring our entry. By December 1958, with utmost efficiency, my father made arrangements for a transatlantic crossing, and while waiting for the day of departure, we moved in with his step-mother, Klari.

“Early in the morning I’d look over at the bed and see your three sleeping heads. After you went away, the bed was so empty.”  This is how Klari described to us in her letters the lonely days after my parents and I emigrated from Israel in December, 1958. This is how she revealed how happy she was that the three of us had stayed with her at her one-room apartment for a few weeks after our own apartment was given up, our furniture dispersed, the suitcases packed, and the trans-Atlantic steerage tickets purchased, in pursuit of my father’s dream to migrate to America.

Klari was my paternal step-grandmother. She had luminous light green eyes. And some freckles on her face. Graying wavy hair that sometimes she gathered in a bun behind the nape. At other times worn short. But around her neck there was always a gold locket that opened to a photo. The locket cover was a delicate cameo.

She was my other grandmother, one of three, two of them living, another being my maternal grandmother. Klari married my grandfather, Deszö, in Transylvania in 1949, soon after he lost his remarkable wife, the grandmother I never met, and the two immediately moved to Israel to join my father. So I was lucky, I had three grandmothers, kinswomen shaping the foundations of my life.

The grandmother I never met was a venerated enigma; she was not a babysitter. But Klari provided childcare on occasions. She fed me madár tej — eoufs à la neige — floating islands. A dessert so milky with love, so whipped up with care, so easy to eat, it was like the breath of kisses on the lips. No one could match her dessert, not even the fancy French restaurants in New York City where I’d go chasing a dream more than half a century later.

When my childhood home was no more, and migration was about to turn my world over and revolve in the opposite direction, the few weeks of living with her kept me safe from worry. I did not know yet what loss meant, because she and her apartment were a haven. I continued to go to my old school from her home for a little while longer, walking two blocks to R. Arlozorov to catch the bus that went up the Carmel Mountain to Ramot Remez and getting off in front of the school. My mother had practiced the drill with me so I could do it alone. On the way back from school, after getting off the bus, I passed a beggar woman every day. One day I left her some coins. I had never done that before; I had never been homeless before.

After my grandfather died in 1956, Klari remained the widow who had been fun for me to visit. I watched her rapturously as she lit Shabbat candles and gathered the sacred light with her hands while murmuring the blessing. She loved my mother so much, and her attentive daughter-in-law reciprocated the affection. The year she married my grandfather, 1949, was also the year my two teenage parents wed in Israel. All these people living the second, improbable chapter in their life. It’s startling to think that Klari was married to Dezsö for less than seven years, a blink of an eye for people their age. She didn’t marry him for money; he had none, and he was very sick after years in a Nazi-led Romanian slave labor camp and needed a caregiver. He died aged fifty-nine leaving her a fatigued widow. Most likely a widow for the second time.

When I was with her, she never talked about her life before the calamity. (She did not have a tattoo on her arm.) Taking her for granted, I never asked about her prior family, her maiden name or maybe her prior married name. She didn’t have children. But maybe she had a husband, or a fiancé, who was deported during the Holocaust? There were no other relatives. She hid the pain behind a cheerful manner. I never heard a cross word; never heard a painful expression; never heard anger, wishful thinking, or regret.

How did my elders pick up the pieces and move forward? By getting married again so soon after losing an indispensable companion? By daring to cross the ocean and arrive at a Mediterranean land so alien compared to what used to be home? When the rug is pulled out from under you, when the walls around you are breached and the contents confiscated, when your livelihood is eliminated, when your essence is erased and your figure is spat upon as if you were a demon, how do you dare pick up the pieces? If you’re treated like an animal, you resort to being human.

Her humanity was boundless. Her little apartment on R. Yerushalayim was so pleasing. One room. That’s all a widow needs. A corner with a little icebox and a shelf-top two-burner primus; two small sunny windows with white lace curtains; a back door to a wooden staircase descending to the ground behind the building; a single bed. And an armoire with the prettiest dresses a seven year old girl could imagine: silk-like fabrics with pretty, colorful patterns. I’d riffle through them, feeling the fabrics, savoring the patterns with my eyes, unaware these were styles from the 1940s. I’d rummage through her necessaire de toilette, smitten by the little round orange box of Coty Airspun face powder, the one still sold today unchanged since 1935 when she was a younger woman, with the iconic design of white powder puffs on the box-top. I still delight in this design, it reminds me of her. 

In the middle of the apartment was a dainty Queen Anne dining table with four matching chairs. And a Persian rug underneath, where I’d lie on my stomach and iron the tufting with my fingernails in the direction of the weave, then alternating, learning that doing so in the other direction made the fiber stand up and change the character of the colors, while I was studying the Persian rug pattern with the medallion in the center and the repetition of the pattern in a satisfyingly predictable sequence, a fractal brain-teaser, intuiting that hand-weaving was about symmetry. And symmetry was about equilibrium, predictability, security.

But we emigrated. Equilibrium, predictability, and security disappeared. Life was not a Persian rug. 

My mother and Klari corresponded for years. Thirteen years after we left her behind, after she remarried, became widowed again, had breast cancer and radical mastectomies, a hacking which made her upper arms swell to twice their size, we went to visit her again in Israel, in a different city, a suburb of Tel Aviv. And she took us in again, and we sat at her table eating leben and drinking Nescafe. You had to heat the milk first then mix in the coffee flakes then add hot water. Old women have a way with rituals you shouldn’t challenge. She showed me her scar. She wasn’t shy. She was forthright. With the kind of uninhibited composure that made her survive the Holocaust nightmare, cancer, death, departure, separation, solitude, and foreigners. She never learned to speak Hebrew.  She managed, because there were enough contemporaries who were also Hungarian speakers.

More than anything else, I associate Klari with a cameo. Classically authentic, revealingly bas relief, unassumingly delicate, straightforwardly monochromatic, singularly solitary. She represented a woman comfortable in her own skin, devoted and caring when called upon, repeatedly alone without protest when no longer needed.

Ruth Zelig migrated three times before the age of 20, changing languages (at least five), cultures, and school systems. After earning an MA in Linguistics, she went on to study computer languages and became a computer programmer and systems analyst at IBM. As a mother, she raised her children, spent years volunteering in a NJ community at various levels of leadership, and became the president of her Conservative synagogue. English remains her primary language for writing.  She has written an epistolary memoir, “Letters From Brazil, Reflections on Migration and Friendship,” and  hopes to publish it soon. You can learn more about her and her work at these social media sites:zeligova.substack.com, jewishwomenofwords.com.au/author/ruth-zelig/, instagram.com/zeligova, and zeligova.com

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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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