Today is Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), when in Israel sirens sound at 10 a.m. For two minutes, the entire country stands still to observe the memory of the [...]
Meet the town of Tykocin in northeast Poland, a shtetl if there ever was one. Tykocin is pretty much as it was in August 1941, when German Einsatzgruppen obliterated [...]
This low stone wall marks the circumference of the barn in Jedwabne, where more than 300 Jews were burned to death [...]
Our November tour of the sites of Jewish history and the Holocaust in Poland and Lithuania began with a visit to the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery. With more than 250,000 [...]
This is all I really wanted from our trip to North Dakota: The open road and wide, wide horizons. (That, and finally visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park, see [...]
It is precious and rare to fall in love with a book. It is even more precious to get lost in a book and be swept away to another world. [...]
For weeks my daughter had been nudging that she wanted to go hike trail 10 in the Indiana Dunes. She wanted to relive a childhood experience. We had taken the [...]
On our trip to Peru last year, we first traveled south, past all the depressing shanty towns of Lima, mainly to see the pre-Columbian Nazca Lines. This post continues my [...]
Seeing the shanty towns south of Lima on the very first day we were traveling in Peru last summer left an indelible impression on me. Never in my life had [...]
In these days of the Coronavirus Pandemic, urban unrest and ensuing heightened uncertainty, I have found trips down memory lane especially meaningful and calming. They connect me to my former [...]
When I was a kid, my mom always made Erdbeerkuchen, i.e. German-style strawberry shortcake for my birthday because it falls at the beginning of strawberry season. Erdbeerkuchen was pretty much [...]
My favorite photo from our walk along the Regent's Canal Towpath: My brother bending his way through one of its tunnels. I have another virtual trip for you: [...]
Whenever I think of the Ballestas Islands, I see this image in my mind. It is my favorite photo of our entire trip to Peru. As we are [...]
This summer, I finally had to give you up. I embarked on my trip to Peru with a new version of you, Just as comfortable and snug, but water tight. [...]
Snippet of my grandmother's original handwritten recipe For Chanukah it was become a tradition in my house to make one of my German grandmother's recipes, Gebackene Mäuse. The [...]
Row Houses on St. Lawrence Ave, Pullman Historic District, Chicago Chicago is like that: In its farther reaches, bland wide streets lined with strip malls or highways with twisting on- [...]
View of Sand Beach, Acadia National Park, Maine, May 2019 Before we left on our recent trip to Acadia National Park, an acquaintance recommended I read Evangeline - A Tale [...]
When you arrive in Petra, you have a fairly long walk from the visitor center to the actual archaeological site. Along the way, however, you can already see multiple cave [...]
If our first stop in Jordan, Jerash, was windswept and chilly, it was downright cold at the Amman Citadel. The Amman Citadel has been a site of fortresses dating back [...]
This past January I was fortunate enough to be able to cross one of the places I always wanted to see off my bucket list: Petra, Jordan. Mind you, this [...]
Parc Montsouris, Paris, September 2017 I have a new essay published in Bella Grace Issue 19, which hits newsstands today! I can't even begin to tell you how [...]
I was driving to my cousin's house for dinner last week when two warning lights came on in the car. Then the instrument panel went dead. When I put on [...]
The actual House of Windows as far as we could tell Have you ever traveled in the footsteps of a book? Visited the location where a character lived? [...]
The WhatsApp message that began the daily ritual: "Here a photo for you, view from our hotel, you also sent me such nice photos of the big wide world [...]
One of the things I love about Jerusalem is that you stumble upon historically significant sites all the time. Such was the case last weekend, when my husband and I [...]
On our recent trip to Boston, we visited Plimouth Plantation. As often happens when traveling, you go out to see one thing and discover another. Plimouth Plantation hadn't been the [...]
"...when [you] remember feeling joyfully bound to the whole earth or even universe -- [those moments] are most likely to be associated with being alone, and often alone outside." found [...]
This is the time of year when I used to go apple picking with my kids. Alas, they've all flown the nest, and the one day my daughter and I [...]
Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is around the corner, and so I thought this is a good time to share a few photos from my visit to the Vilna [...]
Turns out my one day of pure R&R this summer was spent crossing Lake Michigan on the SS Badger Ferry (our trip to New Orleans wasn't exactly R&R). Assembling this [...]
At our grandparents' grave - my sister, my brother and I Summer is the time of family reunions. Incidentally, just before my hip surgery, we had a family [...]
Not a place where we could eat, but it was still fun to see Paul Prudhomme's original restaurant still operational. I have his Fork in the Road cookbook, and his [...]
I might be good at writing my Morning Pages, but I am horrible at keeping Artist Dates. These are two of the three pillars sustaining a creative life, according to [...]
How can a public place can be so personal? How can I be so attached to a place I don't own, maintain, nor have a say in its very existence? [...]
Why is it so meaningful to return to your roots? To where your ancestors are from? To visit places you only know from stories and pictures? I’ve asked myself that every [...]
This is my favorite photo of our trip to Venice last March: My brother's hands caught taking a photo of the Grand Canale as we were standing on the Rialto [...]
Today marks the 79th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, when most of the synagogues in the German Reich were destroyed along with Jewish shops and businesses. Until [...]
With all the barbarism we're facing these days (the truck-ramming terror attack in New York being the latest), I find it's good to remind ourselves of all the beauty and [...]
Today I'm happy to share my essay "Jewish Encounters in a Non-Jewish Land," published recently in the brand-spanking new Sasson Magazine. Please head on over [...]
...visit the Montfort Castle in northern Israel. As my contribution to the Field Guide to Everyday Magic Blog Hop, I'm sharing how I finally did so because I have found [...]
My book and I just had the great fortune of spending time in Jerusalem. For me it was an "again," and, while my book per se had not been to [...]
Today is Yom HaZikaron, the day Israel remembers its fallen soldiers. As the mother of two IDF soldiers (My daughter wrapped up her service last year; my son is still [...]
In time for Easter, my essay "At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre" appeared on Jerusalem Moments. With it, I thought I'd share a few photos from and around this [...]
Today is the publication date of my memoir Jumping Over Shadows! Hurray! And thus I offer you my very first book companion post, a series I plan to run every [...]
Scottish Highlands, August 2015 Today the winter issue of Artful Blogging hits newsstands, and it features my photo essay "The Accidental Travel Blogger." This is a dream come true for [...]
While we were visiting Minute Man National Historical Park last weekend, we stopped for lunch in the nearby colonial town of Concord, where I noticed two old graveyards in the [...]
The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery is a forest of its own. (Photo by Rivka Schiller) […]
Yesterday morning I had occasion to walk around the downtown Chicago neighborhood of Streeterville where I used to work eight years ago. It's always interesting to see how much it [...]
My favorite place in Ireland is the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Antrim in Northern Ireland. I love the mystery of it, i.e. the fact that even geologists are [...]
Dunluce Castle, Northern Ireland {August Break 8/11: Green} Today's August Break prompt of "green" is the perfect kick in the behind for me to share some of my [...]
