Tag Archives: marriage

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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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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December 23, 2024 · 7:30 am

The Thing About My Conversion

by Miles Whitney (Sacramento, CA)

The thing about my conversion was that it was in response to Karen telling me that if we got married, I would have to convert. I had never considered conversion before that and had only a vague awareness that it was even possible. Later Karen clarified that we could do some kind of civil ceremony even if I didn’t convert, but I chose to explore conversion anyway. Obviously I did end up choosing conversion for myself, with quite a bit of joy. But it wasn’t something I originally sought out — it was something that came out of left field but ended up being one of the best decisions I have made. And that was even before my daughter, Bel, died. 

Karen brought up conversion before I proposed. We barely knew each other. I tried to get my head around the idea of conversion. I had an acquaintance that had started the conversion process a few years earlier, but we had lost touch and I had forgotten about it. Of course, I knew about Ivanka Trump, and Karen, who had converted maybe eight years earlier, but the idea that this was something I could do, or anyone could do, was new. I worried about cultural appropriation. At the same time, I felt something like recognition, like I had failed to see something totally obvious that was right in front of me.

I immediately agreed to explore conversion. However, there wasn’t a readily available rabbi or conversion class. This all happened during early COVID. Karen was not affiliated with any congregation at the time, and I lived in a different city. Everything was shut down.

Karen found a rabbi for me. Karen’s father had died a few months into the pandemic (from unrelated causes), and Karen had struggled to find support. Karen had posted something online about their dilemma of how to say the Kaddish. A Bay Area rabbi had offered to help. I remember Karen telling me that the rabbi would be a great person to study with if he was available and willing. Karen insisted that if nothing else I should talk to him, because we would totally hit it off.

I called the rabbi and indeed we hit it off. I told him about my fears of cultural appropriation. He assured me that it was totally fine to convert. He told me a story about how converts are supposed to be treated. He asked me why I thought he opened with that, and I guessed it was because some people might not live up to that ideal. He said I was right. He also told me about a tradition whereby an applicant would ask a rabbi three times when seeking to convert, but he would not hold me to that. He was quite sure I would meet enough obstacles without him throwing up more.

I asked about my Buddhist practice, which I didn’t want to abandon. He assured me that there was no serious conflict, that he himself practiced Zen. We talked about my conversion being in response to Karen’s wishes. I told him I wasn’t sure I would convert. I just didn’t know enough yet. He told me that this was a good position, that no matter how the journey had been initiated, in the end I would have to decide for myself. We would figure out the answer as we went along. I agreed to proceed.    

In the beginning, the rabbi told me to find three things I would have a hard time discarding, and three things I looked forward to gaining. One thing I knew for certain was that I would happily embrace monotheism again, after spending many years following the Christian faith. I had quit that path after too many followers supported Proposition 8. I missed it.

I had not, however, expected to fall in love with Judaism’s magical world of stories, words, and ideas. That is all I had then. I had yet to attend a service or participate in any of the home-based rituals. It was more than enough. My experience was similar to how, in my early twenties, I stumbled into a job at a law firm and found out that the law was exactly how my mind worked. The stories, words, and ideas stole my mind.

I was asked to do writing assignments. I wrote about my relationship with the Divine. The rabbi told me I should polish it up and get it published, that it would be of benefit to the world and to the Jewish people. That sentence made no sense to me. Why would anything I do matter to the Jewish people? I didn’t understand anything yet.

I decided to convert. I sat for the (Zoom) Beit Din. I had sent in my writings earlier, including one about how I chose my Hebrew name, so the rabbis knew something about me. I expressed my fear of not knowing enough, not being Jewish enough. One of the rabbis told me not to belittle my fears, that the sentiment was “so Jewish.” I laughed, delighted. I passed.

I ended up doing the mikveh in the American River, witnessed by Karen and a mutual friend. Even though it was August, the water was so cold that stepping in it made my feet ache. Karen and our friend perched on a large boulder that was surrounded by the freezing water. There was a depression in front of the boulder, where I decided to submerge myself. I waded in, wondering whether the cold could stop my heart. Because I was so slow at learning Hebrew, Karen had to tell me the prayer a few words at a time, which I repeated. I bent my knees and was underwater. I popped back up, and the process was repeated. By the second dip I was numb to the cold. Once again and it was done.

Karen and I had our perfect Jewish wedding two months later. Seven months after that, my daughter Isabel (from a previous relationship) died in her sleep. She was 22. No cause was ever found. Now it was the rituals that saved me. Karen covered mirrors and I did nothing until the rules said I could. Saying Mourner’s Kaddish tethered me to the world when nothing made sense, when my very self was shattered.

I began to write. I wondered if everything was created in six days. If God said everything created was good, was death included? If so, why was death treated as less than, or not as good as, life? I looked for the origin of death in Genesis. I was astounded by what was and was not in the text. Unsure of what I was finding and writing, I shared the piece with a rabbinical student, who saw nothing wrong. I sent the essay out and it was immediately accepted for publication in a Jewish literary journal. I didn’t see that coming. It was the first thing I ever submitted.

I also sought answers to mundane problems in Torah and found them. Karen and I joined a conservative shul. I wrote more essays. I became a Shabbat enthusiast, declaring it a day of “aggressive rest.” I observed new holidays: donuts, fasting, rickety shacks, trees.  But on Bel’s second Yahrzeit, I fell into an awful depression. I felt useless, like everything I had been was dead and all that was left was to wait for my body to follow. Or, in fancy words, I am only here to remember the dead.

I was driving to an AA meeting in the midst of this funk when I was forced to stop because a young woman stepped in front of my car and refused to move. I asked her what she wanted, and she said she needed to call an ambulance. I offered her a ride to the ER instead. She got in the car and asked if we could just talk. She clutched a beer and cried as she told me she was suicidal. She had relapsed a few months prior. She told me about her breakup, and about her happiness during her sobriety. We talked a little more, then I mentioned that I was on my way to a meeting. She looked straight ahead out the windshield and said, “Let’s go!”

I took her to the meeting and although she didn’t stay, the effect on me was profound. It felt like God, through her, was blocking my (downward) path. Like God grabbed my face, looked me in the eye, and shook me. My depression stopped, in part because it felt forbidden. I was convinced there was a command in there, that it was time to do something else. The next week I dreamt that my local rabbi showed me a binder containing three questions about Torah, which I was supposed to answer. I couldn’t read the questions, perhaps because it was a dream, or I didn’t have my readers, or maybe it was in Hebrew.

I don’t know what this means, other than to be open to the new and be willing to say yes. Maybe it means my old life is indeed dead, but a new life lies ahead, which will be significantly Jewish. Maybe I will even do something of benefit to the world and the Jewish people. 

Miles Whitney is a queer, trans, Jewish attorney living in Sacramento, California. Miles started writing creatively after the unexpected death of his daughter, Isabel, in 2022.

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October 16, 2023 · 7:30 am

You Want Me to Keep a Kosher Kitchen? Really? 

by Carol Blatter (Tucson, AZ)

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

“How do you keep kosher?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll help you.”

* * *

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

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

“What’s parve?”

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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January 9, 2023 · 6:30 am

Sanctuary

by Alison Hurwitz (Cary, NC)

Incongruous, that towered height among the holly, butternut, 

hydrangea, along the oaks, camellias, black-green laurel hedge —

there it rose, so tall it steepled everything, as if to say, remember,

pray to what grows green above us.

A field-worn, furrowed man called Shorty came knocking once. He said

when young, he’d planted a young redwood seedling there, brought back

from California, vaguely hoped that it would someday grow to be 

a landmark. He’d removed his crumpled hat, his hand a map of years, 

his eyes as wide as forests, asked if he could go and touch the trunk, 

already girthed to temple, breathing dusk. My mother understood,

she a tree parishioner, so both of them remained a while in silence.

When Shorty went away, he left his story grafted to its branches. 

Dad cut back the deck each year, to give the redwood room to ring. Rare 

days when grandparents sat dappled on the deck, polite and tightly furled,

Jews and Catholics baffled past translation, they sat in shade below it, and 

in stillness, shifted into softening; green a common tongue between them. 

At seventeen, I’d park with my first love across the street, and kiss until the night 

dipped branches dark with longing. When, same car, same street, same boy, 

time wrenched us into ending, the tree stood by to witness, a shelter until 

my loss let go its spores, until my heart referned with undergrowth.

Ten years later, beneath the tree, my new husband and I stood quiet while my parents, 

faces filigreed with leaf-light, planted blessings in us. They prayed we’d tend

a sapling, make a small repair, something to green the broken world. My parents’ hope 

could sing the music out of wood.  Mitzvot and Meritum. Their reverence, ringed.

The day after my father died, when all I had was absence, I stumbled out to sit 

below our redwood tree. There, grief burrowing among its roots, I stayed until 

I found a seed and held it in my palm. I breathed and felt the way that branches 

lifted into blue, its birds built nests, the fledglings flew, each ending bending to beginning: 

holy as the timeless sky.

Alison Hurwitz’s work has appeared in Global Poemic, Words and Whispers, Tiferet Journal, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Anti-Heroin Chic, Book of Matches, and The Shore, and is forthcoming in Amethyst Review, Rust and Moth, Thimble Magazine, Academy of the Heart and Mind, and SWWIM Every Day. She writes gratefully in North Carolina. To read more about her and her work, visit alisonhurwitz.com

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July 25, 2022 · 6:30 am

Bashert? Who, Me?

by Esther Erman (Mountain View, CA)

Let me tell you a story.

In 1993, I was a 47-year-old divorced mother of two college graduates, getting my doctorate in language education. Despite being that oxymoron – a “mature student” – I was also a “starving student,” financing my degree at Rutgers with a meager teaching assistantship and a couple of other low-paying jobs.

After a period of disillusionment with Judaism, I’d slowly been working my way back. In addition to my work in language education (pedagogy, linguistics, and culture of diversity), I had a strong interest in feminism, which led me to concurrently earn a certificate in women’s studies. That was how I stumbled upon Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb. Her writings exhibited a feminist view of Judaism and included a concept, new to me, of the Shekhinah – the feminine side of the deity. I was inspired to study with her. But (and remember this was long before Zoom) the rabbi lived in New Mexico, which to me, a denizen of New Jersey who’d never been west of Chicago or south of DC, might as well have been the moon.

Then I received a brochure from Elat Chayyim about their upcoming summer Jewish Renewal retreat in Accord, New York. Lo and behold, Rabbi Gottlieb was scheduled to teach during one of the weeks! I applied and, given my starving student status, received a scholarship to enable me to attend.

But just then, my son, who was teaching in Prague, decided to come home for some of the summer. If I went to Elat Chayyim as planned, I’d have had to miss time with him. Although Rabbi Gottlieb would be there for only that week, I figured I’d be despondent after my son returned to Prague, so I changed my retreat week to one that would take place after he left. And I decided I’d even splurge and treat myself to one of the $50 massages being offered at the retreat, which would be only my second-ever massage.

Without Rabbi Gottlieb there, I chose a class in Kabbalah. Spirituality and mysticism have been occasional elements in my life, with me devoting a good amount of energy and attention to them at times. That summer, I felt especially open to and interested in both. The Kabbalah class was taught by Rabbi David Wolfe-Blank, then the rabbi of the Aquarian Minyan in Berkeley. (For this New Jersey resident, it was hard to say which was more exotic and strange – Berkeley or the Aquarian Minyan.) Rabbi David Wolfe-Blank was possibly the gentlest man I’d ever met. He and his class, his creativity and his energy, were a continuous revelation. I felt ongoing wonder and amazement as we studied and learned and experienced together. Even though this was in 1993, I felt as if I were back in the 60’s – only being a more authentically “young” person than I’d actually been back in the real 60’s. I felt open – and I was amazed to be having these feelings in a Jewish context. (Unfortunately the world lost a great spirit when Rabbi Wolfe-Blank died at a very young age just a few years after that summer.)

I perceived both Rabbi Gottlieb and Rabbi Wolfe-Blank and their teaching as being exotic – so different from my East Coast/Eastern European/Holocaust survivor experience of Judaism. Here I found a place for my creativity and my individuality, a place where my uniqueness (or my oddness) could be not only accepted, but honored and celebrated. Maybe it was this that lowered my barriers and let me be open to what came next…

Each retreat attendee was assigned to a small group mishpocha (family) – kind of like a homeroom – where we met first thing in the morning and then again in the late afternoon, to share our experiences. Lee, one of the few men in my mishpocha, had just completed a course in massage therapy and wanted to practice. He offered a free massage to everyone in the group. Great! I can get the massage and save the $50. 

The time for the massage came. As I was about to get on the table, I looked at Lee – and I saw him surrounded by a golden aura. I caught my breath and was smitten. And then I thought, Oh no! He lives in California. 

At a very few times in my life, I’ve had what I consider “mountain peak” experiences (in which I include rare experiences of visions and voices). I had studied a bit of mysticism and different beliefs. And a lot about astrology because I had a co-worker who was very knowledgeable and generous. I knew a bit about auras, and I had seen one or two, but nothing as startling as the golden aura around Lee. Although gold auras are usually associated with saints and other divine beings, the message I received was Pay attention – this is a good man, and one who might be very important to you.

I spent much of the rest of the week trying to get Lee’s attention, but, to my increasing dismay, to no avail. At the closing circle of the retreat, I was crying. Lee came over, gave me a hug, which was clearly not meant to offer anything more than kind support. Lee also offered me a full-size box of tissues, saying he didn’t want to pack them for his flight back to California. Being sure I’d never see him again, I made copious use of those tissues on my drive all the way back to New Jersey. 

And then I wrote to Lee…

Lee and I  have just celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Especially on Shabbat, I remember exactly how much I longed to be with him on that first Shabbat during the week we met. As we celebrate Havdalah at the end of Shabbat with our arms around each other, I glance at that box of tissues in its hallowed spot in our home, and, in wonder, thank the Shekhinah for bringing me together with my bashert.

Like Rebecca, the heroine of her upcoming novel (Rebecca of Salerno: a Novel of Rogue Crusaders, a Jewish Female Physician, and a Murder), Esther Erman was a refugee. The daughter of two survivors of the Shoah from Poland, Esther was born in Germany. A naturalized citizen, she early developed a passion for language. After receiving her BA and MA in French from different divisions of Rutgers University, she returned there for her doctorate in language education. She wrote her dissertation about Yiddish, her first language, which she had abandoned at age five. A multi-published author, Esther now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband Lee. When they’re not traveling—especially to be with family in other parts of the US and in England—she loves to bake, quilt, and add to her monumental book collection. Her website is EstherErman.com.

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October 11, 2021 · 6:40 am

Furniture

by Steven Sher (Jerusalem, Israel)

Before proposing, Grandpa Sam

bought furniture and Grandma Anna,

pragmatic, agreed to marry him.

That’s what passed back then for love,

the young torn from their families and homes,

fleeing Russia before the next pogrom.

A couple needed a proper bed,

a table and chairs, a dresser and sofa.

They even believed that sturdy

furniture would prop up any failings

in their feelings, that they could build

a life around it and six kids.

Sam died before I was born. Named after him,

I don’t put too much stock in furniture.

Anna outlived him thirty years,

the stern and proper widow

always sitting straight and proud

in an upholstered high back chair

before the family when we gathered

every week around the solid table

Sam had bought so many years before.

Steven Sher’s recent titles include What Comes from the Heart: Poems in the Jewish Tradition (Cyberwit, 2020) and Contestable Truths, Incontestable Lies (Dos Madres Press, 2019). A selection of his Holocaust poems, When They Forget (New Feral Press), is due out in 2021, while his prose will appear in New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust. For Flowstone Press, he is editing an anthology of Oregon poets. Steven lives in Jerusalem. If you’d like to read more about Steven Sher, visit his website: steven-sher-poetry.wixsite.com/writing

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May 14, 2018 · 5:53 am

A Savory Recipe

by Jane Ellen Glasser (Lighthouse Pt., FL)

        for my daughter on her 16th wedding anniversary

I would never have thought sixteen years

a sweet anniversary, a rejuvenation of love.

That was the year your father and I divorced.

          I was confused as a child watching Mother pour

          sugar on seasoned meat. Like her marriage,

          I knew some things didn’t belong together.

I have watched you and your husband

navigate differences, repair cracks and leaks

with the plug of sweet acceptance.

          After the meat was browned with onions,

          after the cup of sugar, Mother added in sour salt

          before simmering the meal stove-top for hours.

What I didn’t learn from my parents or my own failed

marriage, you have mastered: love’s work

takes opposites, sweet needing sour to grow a marriage.

          When the meat was tender, Mother

          thickened the sauce with ginger snaps.

          No one made a more savory brisket.

Just days ago, you hosted family and friends for a seder

on heirloom china. You served brisket and a recipe

for a loving marriage to pass down to your children.

Jane Ellen Glasser’s poetry has appeared in journals such as Hudson Review, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Georgia Review. In the past she reviewed poetry books for the Virginian-Pilot, edited poetry for the Ghent Quarterly  and Lady Jane’s Miscellany, and co-founded the nonprofit arts organization and journal New Virginia Review.  She won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry 2005 for Light Persists and The Long Life won the Poetica Publishing Company Chapbook Contest in 2011. Her seventh poetry collection, In the Shadow of Paradise, appeared from FutureCycle Press in 2017. Her work may be previewed on her website: www.janeellenglasser.com

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October 29, 2012 · 7:56 am

Modeh Ani: I Am Grateful

by Laura Greene (Whitefish Bay, WI)

In 1957 I boarded the SS United States and sailed from New York to Germany to marry a “nice Jewish boy from New Jersey.” Neither of our parents attended our wedding, although they both approved of the marriage. The Army Chaplin provided the men for the minyan, and they held the chupah. I didn’t know any of the guests or what a minyan or a chupah were. At the end of the ceremony the rabbi folded my hands around a sheet of paper. I thought it rather strange to be handed a marriage license at the end of my wedding. The rabbi looked directly into my eyes and his last words to me before releasing my hands were, “The responsibility of having a Jewish home is yours.”

I was dumbfounded. This wasn’t fair. I had no knowledge of such things. Why was this my responsibility? Why hadn’t he warned me that he was going to say this in front of God! I would have argued, protested, refused. But now it was too late.

I am the daughter of two American-born, secular Jewish parents. I grew up in New Jersey which Jewishly is a suburb of New York. My Jewish grandparents on both sides went back to Moscow and Constantinople. They and my parents spoke Yiddish and attended Yiddish theatre. Yet none of them celebrated a Jewish holiday.

My mother never lit a Shabbat candle. Our so-called Seders meant bread on one plate and matzah on another. Hagaddah?  I never heard of it. I stayed home from school on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur because it didn’t look nice for me to be in school. My parents usually had an argument on Yom Kippur because my father, who stayed home from work, insisted on eating. To him religion was superstitious nonsense. Sometimes he referred to it as black magic and he mocked the religious. Yet, I always knew I was Jewish. My brother had a bar mitzvah by memorizing his portion. My mother made chicken soup, chopped liver, kugel, bacon and shrimp.

In college a sorority sister invited me to her family Seder. Her brother was studying to be a cantor and he sang the liturgy. The family explained the proceedings as the family read from the Hagaddah and sang the traditional melodies. How kind and gentle the family were. How non-judgmental. I felt cheated at how much I had missed. If I married a Jewish boy, maybe I could catch up. My parents wanted me to marry Jewish. They were pleased when I found Victor.

Victor and I met in college. Like me, Victor was Jewish all the way back. In fact his father lay t’fillin every morning. I found out much later that his father never told him why or taught him how. Victor’s Hebrew and religious school experiences were fraught with unhappy memories. He entered the army after college graduation and was sent to Germany. We decided not to wait to get married, and instead, took the opportunity to visit Europe during his leave time.

When we returned home, we both enrolled in school. He earned a Ph. D degree and I earned an MA degree. Our friends were academics. We hosted Seders and invited our non-Jewish friends. Victor knew how to lead a Seder and I knew how to cook. I lit my grandmother’s brass candlesticks that my mother had tucked into my luggage when I left for Germany. Victor’s first teaching job was in Manhattan, Kansas and there I had my next Jewish experience.

There were two resident Jewish families in Manhattan. They adopted the itinerant, and, for the most part, uncommitted Jewish university faculty members. The ever-fluid Jewish community owned a one room building and from time to time a student rabbi from Fort Riley would pay a call. For Passover the two resident families ordered supplies from Topeka and arranged for shipment to Manhattan. I ordered two boxes of matzah.

Nina Becker taught me how to light Shabbat candles and how to bench. I was awkward, but I did it. I never forgot what the rabbi said at my wedding. What was I going to do when I had children? I knew nothing.

While in Kansas, I gave birth to a daughter.  Then, since academics travel, our son was born in Ohio. Knowing nothing about the importance of names, and neither family making suggestions, we just picked our children’s names because we both liked them. Our son was circumcised, but there was no brit milah. It didn’t matter to anyone. The decision still haunts me. We never missed hosting a Seder, and I never missed lighting Shabbat candles.

Victor’s next teaching job was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so we said good-bye to Kansas. By then our daughter was eight-years-old and our son, three. Victor drove a U-haul truck with all our belongings and I followed him in our VW Bug with the children. They had been the only Jewish children in that college town. There were no child car seats or seat belts in those days. To avoid the summer heat and traffic, we left about 3 a.m. I fell asleep at the wheel and hit a guardrail. The car went airborne over a fifty-foot embankment, plunged down, hit the ground, and bounced a few feet before stopping.

Miracle number one: The car did not turn over. Miracle number two: My children were not hurt. They had bounced between and among the nest of pillows and stuffed animals.

“That was fun, Mommy, can we do it again?” said my three year old when the car stopped moving.

I did everything wrong after that. Believing it was safer in the car than on the road, I told my children to stay in the car. Dazed and shaken, I climbed up the hill to get help.

Miracle number three: The car did not catch fire. My daughter had the good sense to turn off the motor. We stayed in voice contact. Victor, unaware of the accident, continued his journey.

A trucker spotted me. It must have been very strange to see a woman pacing the interstate road in the dark and screaming over an embankment. There were no cell phones in those days.

“Where’s your car?” he asked.

Shivering in the 80-degree heat, I pointed.

“Stay here. I’ll report the accident at the next exit.” He drove away.

Two cars passed without slowing. Meanwhile, I kept telling my children to stay put. It seemed forever before a police car arrived. The officer was kind. He asked me where I got my jacket. Until then I hadn’t noticed that the trucker had put his jacket on my shoulders.

The policeman stayed with me until Victor arrived. When Victor saw only me and not the children, his face contorted in pain.

“The kids are fine,” I said.

He put his head on the rolled-down window and cried for a few moments, then climbed down the hill and retrieved our children. Geoffrey’s pajamas were the color of the rising sun. I still cannot see the orange sun without remembering that accident.

Miracle number four: The VW Bug had not rolled over, but the guardrail had ripped a hole through the door of the driver’s seat. The hole was large enough to put my head through, but we walked away from that accident. We completed our trip scrunched in the cab of the U-haul truck. I never knew who the truck driver was. I never had the chance to thank him or return his coat. I wondered why I was still alive and my children safe. What made him stop when others didn’t?

We arrived in Milwaukee in August. I wanted to attend High Holiday Services. I needed to thank God I hadn’t killed my children. I needed to thank God for being alive. I needed to thank God for sending us the truck driver.

We visited all the Reform and Conservative synagogues in town. At each one we were told that without tickets we couldn’t attend the High Holidays. I asked why a person needed a ticket to pray. The answers did not satisfy me. Defeated, I told one Conservative rabbi that we’d pray in the park. He responded differently than the others. “A Jew should not pray alone on the High Holidays. If you decide to join us fine, if not, that’s fine too.  Come and welcome.”

We joined that day and enrolled our daughter in his religious school. Shortly after, at my daughter’s public school orientation, a woman approached me. “You’re new in town,” she said. “Are you Jewish?”

Her question shocked me. People in Kansas and New Jersey just don’t go around asking that question. I must have looked stunned because she laughed.

“I’m a speech therapist. I can tell by your accent you’re from the east coast. So I guess you’re Jewish. I’m Jewish too. Give me your phone number and I’ll invite you for Shabbat.”

To my surprise, she did. We talked. She said the synagogue I had just joined was looking for teachers and I should apply. I laughed.

“I don’t know anything,”’ I said.

“So, you’ll learn. You’ll keep one step ahead of the kids. I’ll help you.”

She did, and I did. We became good friends. Bit by bit I learned. Many people mentored me. I took courses through the Jewish community and the university. I attended Jewish conferences. It wasn’t long before I identified strongly as a Reform Jew. In time I received certification from HUC and teacher certification from the University of Wisconsin. I learned Hebrew, and, through the years, have received numerous teaching awards. I love what I do. My life was enriched because of my involvement in Jewish education. After 40 years of teaching in religious school and Hebrew school and helping kids prepare for becoming a bar or bat mitzvah, I have gained far more than I have given. Perhaps my debt to the truck driver is now paid in full. I wonder if he got his jacket back.

Just as I have been influenced by my many teachers, so have I influenced the children I’ve taught. I think about my Jewish journey and how far I have come. Was I led here? I like to think so. My husband is no longer reluctant to attend services with me or display Jewish artifacts in our home. When we recently downsized from a house to an apartment, he requested that a mezuzah be on every doorpost of our apartment, not just the front door. I wish I had treasured that strange paper the rabbi placed between my hands on my wedding day, but I didn’t know what a ketubah was. When I told this story to my present rabbi he smiled.

“You could have said no.”

His answer surprised me. Until then it never occurred to me that I had that option.

My daughter didn’t marry, but my son married a Jewish girl and they recently joined a synagogue. They live far away from me. My oldest grandchild now attends religious school kindergarten. He will learn Hebrew, see his grandmother light Shabbat candles and understand why. My brother, an atheist, is a strong supporter of Israel and his daughter and her family are active members of an Orthodox Jewish community. Our parents must have done something right, and maybe we did, too. I am blessed. L’dor v’dor.

Laura Greene holds an MA in American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. She has written twelve books for children and has received commendations for her work from the National Council of Teachers of the Social Sciences, Council for Wisconsin Writers, and the Writers League of Texas. She is currently seeking publication of her first adult novel: Walking on the Razor, a literary thriller about Eli Cohn, an Israeli spy whose courage saved a nation. Married, with two children, and three grandchildren, Laura enjoys reading, knitting, ballet, music, travel, cooking, and teaching. 

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October 4, 2010 · 7:10 am

Mr. Blumen

by Chaim Weinstein (Brooklyn, NY)

Stiffly they sit, side by side
In sepia-flavored photo on the shelf
Their hundred-year synced stories
Now torn by jagged scythe most quick
From the banshee-screaming reaper:
The cossack’s rapier brandished high
In Warsaw, slashed and missed them.
The dysentery, the loneliness
Vale-filled tears, endless pain:
They survived it all,
Two lovers near burning in the ghetto;
Sixty years on, now one off
So how shall he presume?
Without her skin to smell,
Her wisdom and nags
Her giggles and word-arrows
Piercing his cast-iron armor
Or lighting his slow-built ardor
Why breathe? But he will
Most assuredly go on,
For the Eldest Cossack
Has missed yet again.

Chaim Weinstein taught English for more than thirty years at two inner-city junior high schools in Brooklyn, NY. His poem, “The Shul is Dark,” appeared on The Jewish Writing Project (February, 2010), and an early short story, “Ball Games and Things,” was published in Brooklyn College’s literary magazine, Nocturne. He is currently working in several genres and is hoping to  share a larger selection of his work in the future.

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