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I have lived in this house for over 30 years, but it is only in the last month or so that I have decided to turn a mostly unused space behind my garage into an orchard. When I was growing up, my Dad always spoke about the orchard behind his home in Warka, Poland with […]
We hadn’t been back in a decade. As we headed North on route 395 we started reminiscing about all the years we had spent vacationing in Mammoth. We had gone during the summer, but loved it most during the winter. We had stayed in various hotels, motels and condos, until we discovered Tamarack Lodge at […]
Over the past three nights I have watched Cooked, a series based on the book of the same title by Michael Pollan and I am hooked, on Cooked. In the first episode I learned that Americans are spending less time cooking than ever before, no surprise, but more time watching food-related cooking shows, which I did find surprising. It’s been a […]
Spring is here, Purim is over, and Passover is just weeks away. For the third year in a row, we are going back East to celebrate Passover with our children at the home of our older son and daughter-in-law, a home where we have always felt welcomed and included, to a seder that is open […]
In Aaron Lansky‘s book, Outwitting History, he relates that in the Conservative synagogue he attended as a young boy, the front rows of the shul were filled with ” American-born professionals” who created an atmosphere that become more decorous each year. On the other hand, the back of the shul was filled with Eastern European […]
My first home was an apartment on the corner of 183 St. and The Grand Concourse. 2274 Grand Concourse was a brick pre-war building, a walk-up, with two wings and a center courtyard (perfect for playing handball.) The apartment had wonderful architectural features that I was too young to appreciate but which clearly made a […]
I have always found graduations moving. Just hearing that first note of Pomp and Circumstance makes my eyes well up with tears, but listening to a young group of male and female rabbinic students, including my older son, walking in to their ordination ceremony singing Ozi v’Zimrat Yah was stirring. We were watching a new generation of rabbis […]
Bamitbach 