My kids would rather starve than eat a blintz or other food with roots in the shtetls of Eastern Europe. They’ll have to find other ways to connect to their Jewish past.
The waning of summer's warm days signals the arrival of the Hebrew month of Elul. It's a time to contemplate the approaching Days of Awe and how best to prepare for them.
These days, I mostly use Hebrew to teach bar and bat mitzvah students, but seeking to enhance my Hebrew IQ, I’ve started streaming Israeli music and television shows.
Even though none of my DNA seems to speak Italian, there is a distinct 2,000-year-old connection between my mom’s ancestral line and that boot-shaped country on the Mediterranean.
Although we may think time moves in a linear fashion, Jewish holidays insert themselves in unexpected moments and places, seemingly out-of-sync with our expectations.