I used to irritate my Jewish educator friends by contending that the experience of attending Hebrew school, either on the weekend or in the afternoon hours after the “regular” school day, alienated more kids than it inspired. In my day, it was four afternoons a week plus Sunday mornings, in an era still free of soccer practices and overprogrammed schedules typical of middle-class Jewish life. I...
After writing about where it all started in that space-challenged apartment in Brooklyn, I could march you chronologically through all the subsequent places I’ve lived in the 60+ years since I moved on to my charmless cinder block dorm room at Harvard. Among the many way stations that followed were the one-room apartment on the San Francisco panhandle, complete with Murphy bed that folded...
How many times was it drilled into us in elementary school that food, clothing and shelter were three basic necessities of life? Yet, an increasing number of our citizens find themselves in the newly labeled category of the “unhoused.” Recent reports indicate that in Los Angeles alone, there are 70,000 people in this most unfortunate position. Like most, if not all, of my readers, I find it...
I woke up in the middle of the night last night in a panic. I wasn’t sure I remembered my social security number, Rosellen’s as well. Where would I be able to find documents that contained the numbers? Were they on the 1099 forms that came last week from the IRS? First thing in the morning I would have to write them down and put them in a prominent place so that whoever drew the short lot on...
I may have mentioned in a long-ago entry that one of my favorite writing prompts in my workshops with teachers and other adult groups asked people to write about the history of their hair. This is a topic that most women are immediately drawn to. Men less so, unless they have dealt with baldness, served in the military or have been caught up in the dynamic world of Black hair styling.I...