“Do your little bit of good where you are; It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” Desmond Tutu. By MARILYN SHAPIRO This morning, as I have done almost every Monday morning for the past four years, I mailed out a small stack of postcards. Just call it my very small attempt to do little bits […]

as imagined by grand-nephew By LANCE ALLEN WANG As we approach Memorial Day, our thoughts may turn to those who have served, and especially within our community, our Jewish veterans, especially those who have passed. My uncle, known at one time as Lieutenant Julius “Julie” Zlasner, served as a B-17 navigator for 27 missions over the Third Reich and I’m […]

By MARILYN SHAPIRO My husband Larry was born the week that the State of Israel was born. For the rest of his life, his birthday celebration would be entwined with the founding of a new country. In 1961, Larry’s entire bar/bat mitzvah class and their families participated in a presentation conducted by Israeli Bond representatives. As a result, Larry’s parents, along […]

By HENRY ABRAMSON NEW YORK CITY (JTA) – It is jarring to see a Star of David placed between the Hebrew transliteration of the words Bergen-Belsen, the notorious Nazi concentration camp where 37,000 Jews, including Anne Frank, were murdered – and on a marriage contract, no less. But there it was, a small bureaucratic form, typed in Rabbinic Hebrew, meant to address the heartbreaking […]

By MARILYN SHAPIRO When Dr. Liz Ross joins her fellow women congregants at Shalom Aleichem Synagogue on the bima for the blessing over the candles, she pulls the hood of her kuspuk, her traditional Native Alaskan snow dress, over her head. And on her neck, her gold Star of David catches the light of the flickering flames. A businesswoman, a […]

By BRIAN D. JOHNSON MADISON, Wisconsin (JTA) – Somewhere, there’s a photograph: My future father-in-law is sitting at the head of the table. My future mother-in-law is sitting to his left and I’m sitting on his right, wearing a suit, tie and kippah. My stunningly beautiful fiancée is next to me, and the rest of the table consists of three […]

By EDWIN BLACK This is deeply personal. But what I have experienced should resonate with the entire Jewish community—the one we know and the one to come. In the whirlwind that seizes me and all who are communally aware, I have reached a new and stunning personal location, wedged between the searing past and the uncertain future. My story begins […]

By MARILYN SHAPIRO Larry and I have lived in three homes in our almost 45 years of marriage. All three have been lovely, after we made them our homes with our personal touches. None of the places we lived, however, ever could compare to the memories I have of the house in which I grew up with all of its […]

May reunion set for that service industry By MARILYN SHAPIRO In the1987 movie of “Dirty Dancing,” Jack Weston’s character Max Kellerman, owner of the fictional Catskill resort, laments the changes that seem to be happening. It all seems to be ending. You think kids want to come with their parents and take fox-trot lessons? Trips to Europe, that’s what the […]

By JACK KAPLOWITZ My wife, Ellen, and I own an apartment in the city of Be’er Sheva. No one is more surprised than I am. I’d only heard of Be’er Sheva because it’s mentioned eight times in the Torah. In 2010 I came to Be’er Sheva for the first time to study Hebrew in the ulpan at Ben-Gurion University. Ellen […]