Thoughts on being Jewish

My son is home from boarding school - just to be with us for our two seders - then he'll zip back on Monday and continue to work hard in his classes. For the first 10 years of his education, he learned with other Jewish kids first in a synagogue pre-school and then in a Jewish Day School. By the time he got to High School, he was pretty much burned out on all the "Jewish Stuff" and chose a decidedly non-Jewish school. I thought he had turned his back entirely on the religion, and though it... Sign in to see full entry.

There are certain times of year, when I feel compelled to reflect on my life. Passover is one of those times. "To know even one life as breathed easier because you have lived." - Emerson, I believe. There's a great story - I'm sure many of you have heard - about the man who goes to the beach and sees thousands upon thousands of starfish washed up on the sand. He sees a boy bending down and throwing them back one by one into the water. "There are millions of starfish dying - you can't even make a... Sign in to see full entry.

Tomorrow I start cooking for 15 guests who will assemble at my house on Sat. night for Passover, or Pesach as we say it in Hebrew. During this springtime holiday, we recite a part of our history in a sometimes creative, sometimes raucous, way; done every year from generation to generation, it is our recounting of the events leading up to and including the Jew's exodus from Egypt. "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt," the answer to the Four Questions ("why is this night different from all other... Sign in to see full entry.

I joined this blog site a few days ago thinking that it would be a forum to share some ideas, my views, musings. I thought there'd be a diverse chorus of voices; some from nearly off the grid, others from outer space, some more conventional, but all with kindness at heart. Then I read Dave's Tips For Living, and it turned my stomach inside out. Though Dave's series of blogs haul out the old saws that have been around since even before Adolph Hitler penned Mine Kompft - about Jewish Cabals,... Sign in to see full entry.

There was a time in the not too distant past, when those born Jewish would eschew their religious identity, shedding "ethnic" names to hide behind Anglican ones. Thus Romanowitz would become the more Italian "Roman" and Greenburg the standard "Green." My own grandmother, of blessed memory, named her son Burton, though what she really had in mind was Benjamin. In the early 1930's, when anti-semitism would fan the flames of the Holocaust-to-come, Benjamin sounded "too Jewish" and possibly... Sign in to see full entry.