Tag Archives: anti-Semitism
Writing Wharton’s Wrong
by Lev Raphael (Okemos, MI) Singing about marriage, two of Steven Sondheim’s characters in A Little Night Music condemn it for inflicting so much pain: “Every day a little death….every day a little sting.” I felt a bit like like … Continue reading
Filed under American Jewry, Jewish identity, Jewish writing
Unlikely Pair
by Chaim Weinstein (Brooklyn, NY) I don’t dare stare at this Yiddish-speaking pair; I eavesdrop instead, not nice, but life’s tough, Waiting here in the cold for the 44 bus. One, white-stubbled, stooped, bushy-browed The other, nine, scrawny, short-limbed, pale, … Continue reading
Filed under American Jewry, European Jewry
The Survivor
by Rafail Kosovsky (West Hollywood , CA ) Free or in captivity, I always feel that I am a Jew. I have forgotten the prayers my father taught me. I have forgotten the Hebrew alphabet and I consider myself a … Continue reading
Filed under American Jewry, European Jewry, Jewish identity
My Father Is Arrested
by Ellen Norman Stern (Willow Grove, PA) The knock on the door of our Berlin apartment came around five o’clock one dark morning in May of 1938. It was the favorite time of day for the Gestapo to make house … Continue reading
Filed under European Jewry, Family history, Jewish identity
A Small Rescue
by Mimi Schwartz (Princeton, NJ) November, 8, 1938 : Some villagers smelled smoke wafting through the windows. Someone heard Mrs. Lowenstein shouting, “Our synagogue is burning. Please, help!” But the street in this little Black Forest village remained silent. Only … Continue reading
Filed under American Jewry, European Jewry
The Key to Jewish Survival
by Susan L. Lipson (Poway, CA) Anti-Semitism has been a blessing for the Jewish people. Yes, you read that right, and yes, I am a Jew. And no, I’m not being totally ironic. I am pointing out a paradoxical fact: … Continue reading
Filed under American Jewry, Jewish identity
The Lost Cellos of Lev Aronson
by Frances Brent (New Haven , CT ) 7 July 1941 Riga With difficulty Lev Aronson carried his cellos, bows, and cases up the stairs of the main post office. In a notebook, many years later, he wrote: “the typical … Continue reading
Filed under European Jewry
Remembrance
by Nina Gold (Waterville, ME) On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah in Hebrew, he told her he was human he understood what it was to fear long walks, gas, and G-d— but he felt, too, the hot terror in the … Continue reading
Filed under Jewish identity
My Father, The Jewish Athlete
by Helen Epstein (Lexington, Massachusetts) When I was growing up in the 1950s, none of my friends’ Dads worked out at a gym, let alone swam laps in a pool. My father did. For nearly two decades between the two … Continue reading
Filed under European Jewry, Jewish identity
A Rally for Harmony
by Mimi Schwartz (Princeton, NJ) As an American Jew—the child of German refugees—overt anti-Semitism was my parents’ old world, not mine. There’d be an occasional remark here and there, but everyone gets that in multi-ethnic New Jersey. No big deal, … Continue reading
Filed under American Jewry
