Archive
I get a call at 10:12 p.m on Tuesday, October 30th from my dad and my heart sinks. He says: “Zaida died at 10:10 p.m., two minutes ago. You’re the first one I called.” For a second I feel tears come to my eyes, and then a rush of relief. My Zaida was 92, and […]
We’ve come a long way since the days when a matchmaker was the main way for a young Jewish person to find romantic connection. Now, in the middle of a milieu of anxieties about assimilation, continuity, and online dating, young Jews no longer have such a clear guide to finding love. For many millennial Jews, […]
Photo credit: athree23 | Pixabay.com. This past summer, Ronit Treatman read a wedding announcement in the New York Times about a successful match made at a bar mitzvah. Treatman, a 50-year-old Philadelphia native, has spent the last decade connecting the Jewish community, largely through several community forums she has built and managed on Facebook. Reading the […]
Several weeks ago, 11 people were gunned down while attending Shabbat morning services at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Throughout the United States, people mourned with the Jewish community after the worst act of violent anti-Semitism in our country’s history while candidates campaigning for the upcoming midterm election promised to make sure nothing like this ever […]
The day that my street became a crime scene, I didn’t go to my job as a waitress. Everything was too heart-achingly fresh and the lockdown wasn’t lifted until it was too late, anyway. I went to work the next day, though. And the day after that. On Tuesdays, my second job entails teaching high […]
This is part 2 in a 3-part series about politics, identity and Jewish community on college campuses. Click here to view part 1, and here to view part 3. When Lindsey Bressler got the first text, it was Nov. 8, 2016 — Election Day. She was watching the news with her peers at Northeastern University, […]
When I saw the news I tried to think if I know anyone who lives in Pittsburgh. If any of my Jewish friends have family there. If any of the first years we’ve welcomed to Hillel over the last few months grew up there. I couldn’t think. I called my friend and cried on the […]
This is part 1 in a 3-part series about politics, identity, and Jewish community on college campuses. Click here to view part 2, and here to view part 3. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah in 2015, a new wave of violence arose in Israel. Often referred to as the “stabbing intifada,” it led to […]
My parents are too young to be historical artifacts. But they’ve seen and lived through a lot. My mother came to America in 1993 under the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a provision that put pressure on the Soviet Union to allow freedom of emigration to Jews and other groups trying to flee. My father, born in Los […]
When I was a little girl, my family took a trip to Switzerland every year. My dad is from Switzerland, so we (my dad, my Jewish American mother, my twin brother, and I) would go every single summer until my grandparents passed away. I always enjoyed these trips – my Disney Princess-loving self was always […]