Yearly Archives: 2016


The bluest sky

It doesn’t seem like much, a brush, a razor and a medium-sized manila envelope, given the weight of other items in the massive exhibit at the National September 11 Museum & Memorial that tells the story of that awful day. They are such quotidian items—the type of things you don’t think about, elevated to relic—in […]


Hamilton, Broadway tickets and the American dream

A few months ago, it finally sank in that I was more likely to come up with a winning Powerball ticket than score affordable tickets to see “Hamilton,” the Broadway blockbuster about the one founding father who did NOT serve as U.S. president. Why tickets to a play about the staunch Federalist who was recognized […]


Confronting Palestine on campus 1

When my daughter and her friends were setting up for a Students for Israel event at Hunter College, they brought enthusiasm, informational materials and a very thick skin. That’s because for some students at CUNY, if you’re a Zionist, you’re a murderer. And you definitely do not belong at the City University of New York. A […]


A room of one’s own–at the Kotel

Next time I go to Israel, I want to read Torah at the Kotel. I want to lead davening, or prayer, the way I do at New City Jewish Center. I want to don tefillin the way I did at The Bayit in Riverdale, without any of that group of Orthodox women batting an eye. […]


Zaftig Barbie and the American Jewish experience

We’re visiting my mother’s cousin Reba, and I’m pretty excited because I get to play with her daughter’s Barbie. Shari is in high school, and uninterested in her Barbie, which is the real deal original. She has blond hair, swept into a curly ponytail, her face framed by curly bangs. Heavily lined eyes cast an […]