My son clung to me and cried as he begged me to turn off the news last night. Through his tears, he said that he’d been ok in the morning when I gently broke the news to him that Arik Einstein had died, but that all day long, no matter where he went, people wouldn’t stop talking about it. And suddenly, while watching President Peres eulogize Israel’s greatest...
So long, my friend; I wish you well As you embark upon this journey of searching for your self I understand – you need to go To walk this path alone So I wish you strength and love To help you find your way back home I hope I cross your mind from time to time And if I do it’s with a fondness and a glimmer in your eye That you’ll dip into our well of memories at least once in a...
By the time our son was in pre-school, we already knew that we didn’t want to send him to a regular public school. My husband grew up in the Israeli school system and didn’t like the way it had evolved over the years and I, who had grown up in an idyllic small town in Upstate New York, was disturbed by the prospect of turning my son over to a seemingly problematic educational...
Sometimes I feel like I’m just hanging by a thread Sanity lost in a roadside ditch – barely breathing, left for dead Scattered bits of mind and soul where brake marks should have been Attesting to the crash and burn my sanity’s been in As I bump along the journey of my life Careening as I do between the laughter, joy and strife Peering at a map that often makes no sense at all...
While the sun shined overhead and my husband tidied up the gravesite, our seven-year-old started to sing a silly song. As I gently explained why a cemetery wasn’t really the place for such activity, he interrupted me. “But Mommy,” he said. “I’m singing a song to make Elad smile. Don’t you want him to be happy?” Surprised by his...
After picking my nine-year-old son up from school the other day, I asked him to sit next to me on the couch. I told him I loved him, reminded him that I would never be angry at him for being honest and then, with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, proceeded to gently ascertain whether or not he had seen pornography on the Internet while at a friend’s house. The boy’s...
Whiling the hours away at home during my son’s high-risk pregnancy, I started a blog. My friend Ashley talked me into it, and as I recall, it didn’t take too much convincing. As a technical writer I desperately needed an outlet that would satisfy my creative desires and, if I was being honest with myself, I wanted to see how my writing would be received by others –...
There’s something about my birthday drawing near that always makes me feel like putting the proverbial pen to paper to do a bit of soul-searching. In 2009, it resulted in a blog post about musical influences, and in 2010, it resulted in a mind-spill of self-reflection. Now here I am in 2013, trying to figure out how to mark my latest trip around the sun (in writing, anyway –...
When I heard that the wife of one of my brother’s oldest friends had lost a child, I sent a carefully worded email to her husband, asking if Stacey might want to talk to someone who had been through something similar. She did, and the connection was made. That was approximately eleven years ago, and over the years, Stacey and I kept up our correspondence at varying degrees of...
Several weeks prior to Passover, my editor at Haaretz contacted me with a story assignment – profiling several Israeli women’s organizations in order to mark International Women’s Day. We compiled a list of possible choices and selected three very different groups for the article – Or Chaya – The World Center for the Jewish Woman (based in...