Newly Digitized Recordings at the Vernadsky Library in Kiev Echo the Lost Ukrainian-Jewish Past – Tablet Magazine
— Read on www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/culture-news/266941/vernadsky-library-kiev
Newly Digitized Recordings at the Vernadsky Library in Kiev Echo the Lost Ukrainian-Jewish Past – Tablet Magazine
Tasting My Russian Grandmother’s Food in Tangiers
Tasting My Russian Grandmother’s Food in Tangiers
— Read on www.jewishbookcouncil.org/_blog/The_ProsenPeople/post/tasting-my-russian-grandmothers-food-in-tangiers/
The Most Important Holocaust Story Never Told – Tablet Magazine
A new film tells the tale of Emanuel Ringelblum’s ‘Oyneg Shabes’ Archive, a trove of hidden materials that documented life in the Warsaw Ghetto
— Read on www.tabletmag.com/scroll/266798/the-most-important-holocaust-story-never-told
Keith Gessen’s ‘A Terrible Country’ Is Pretty Great – Tablet Magazine
Keith Gessen’s ‘A Terrible Country’ Is Pretty Great – Tablet Magazine
— Read on www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/266681/keith-gessen-terrible-country
A Polish Children’s Classic Comes Back Into Print—With Enduring Style by Lewitt-Him – Tablet Magazine
After the illustrators escaped the Nazis, Lewitt-Him brought their Eastern European sensibility to London, where they designed everything from propaganda posters to stamps
— Read on www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/266637/lewitt-him-childrens-classic
Jews and the Irish Potato Famine
During Ireland’s hour of greatest need, Jews donated more aid than anyone in the world.
— Read on www.aish.com/jw/s/Jews-and-the-Irish-Potato-Famine.html
From Cairo to Kolkata, Traces of a Vibrant Jewish Past – The New York Times
A largely vanished world can be rediscovered (though not easily) in cemeteries, synagogues and winding streets.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/travel/jewish-history-cairo-tunis-kolkata.html
Off the Rails in Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast of Siberia – Tablet Magazine
Off the Rails in Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast of Siberia – Tablet Magazine
— Read on www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/266003/birobidzhan
10 Great Introduction-to-Judaism Books | My Jewish Learning
10 Great Introduction-to-Judaism Books | My Jewish Learning
— Read on www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-10-best-introduction-to-judaism-books/
Filed under Interesting Jewish books
Thinking on a warm Sunday
I’ve been out walking with my son for the last hour plus, thankfully about15 minutes into it, he gave in and promptly began that nap he sorely needed since waking at 5:30.
Becoming his mom has definitely acquainted me with more than just early ass waking hours and stubbornness. It’s made me more aware of how my behavior emotionally impacts him. My husband thinks Raphi is shy because he likes to demure and hide his face in whoever is holding him chest. As a shy child myself I have no remedy for that but it does seem to make me smile at him even more than I already do and I wear his giggles and snorts like badges of emotional honor.
I don’t know much of the Jewish approach to mothering. My mother, I feel, wasn’t really Jewish in her caring for me, and honestly I don’t even really have a clue of what the hell it means though undoubtedly there are books on it I can at least get some insight from. Instead I wish I had the chance to learn something, anything from her example. Instead I must draw from my memory of her personality to understand how important patience is when raising a child. Oh my God, is it important! And that’s not a Jewish value, but a human value that dwarves most others.
Raising Raphi hasn’t tested my patience a whole lot yet, sure I lost my shit when he was tiny but that had more to do with the fact that I was in postpartum physical hell and he was a newborn. Instead (I keep saying this today often) I now think on the Jewish Ashkenazi wisdom of naming my son for his babushka. Raphael means “God has healed, healed by God, one who heals” in Hebrew and in infinite ways that’s exactly what he has done for my family. Though seeing his smile and hearing his laughs every day reminds me often heart wrenchingly (I’m talking watching Russian grandmas at a playground with kids and trying not to cry) that his babushka isn’t here to watch him grow, I see his existence as a great healing worthy of his namesake. My father was floored and almost destroyed when my mother passed three years ago and I didn’t know if anything could ever make him truly happy again. Well, Raphi has done that for all of us and especially for my father who is genuinely in love with his grandson. That’s the greatest healing there can be. What’s more Jewish than that?
Filed under Personal Reflections
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