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 [...]
Having a friend in prison has been an illuminating experience for me. I have been contemplating and learning about what that life means, on a day-to-day basis, by corresponding and [...]
Purim is coming up — this year it begins on the evening of March 20 — and I’ve been busy planning what to put in my Mishloach Manot, the small [...]
Christmas at the Hemingway Birthplace Home where I was fortunate to have been writer-in-residence four years ago! Giving up Christmas is one of the advantages of converting to [...]
The destruction of the synagogue in Reichenberg (Liberec), November 9-10, 1938 Last year I wrote about Remembering Kristallnacht in Liberec, which is featured in my book Jumping Over Shadows. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
"So how many people are you having?" - For sure I am going to be asked this question today when I chat about Seder preparations with my coworkers. Read [...]
The mermaid and the astronaut mentioned in the story... This Sunday is the Jewish holiday of Purim. I used to dread the arrival of Purim because that meant I [...]
I've got a new little project--not that I'm lacking for work or busy-ness, but holidays happen if you want them to or not. So this year, since Chanukah is [...]
The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery is a forest of its own. (Photo by Rivka Schiller) […]
Today is the Jewish festival of Tu Bishvat, the New Year of the Trees, and in honor of this celebration that seems out of place here, my article How My [...]
Yesterday was the first night of Chanukah, quite appropriate for my family's annual visit to Chicago's Christkindlmarket downtown, thanks to Chabad Lubavitch's giant Menorah. At the Christkindlmarket we stock up [...]
Stained glass window front at Chicago Loop Synagogue My essay on Kol Nidre was published a year ago, and on the eve of another Yom Kippur it is as relevant [...]
First of all: Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! Secondly, my essay about my very own quandary with Christmas music, "Can a Jew Love Christmas Music?" appeared today in Tablet [...]
Walking through the preschool building at my son's school always lifts my spirits. Invariably I will come across funny and cute creations like these Menurkeys (= Menorah Turkey), created, in [...]
Chicago Loop Synagogue Window Detail ...was published yesterday in Tablet Magazine: Kol Nidre Showed Me... Meanwhile I am looking forward Yom Kippur and am basking, just a little bit, in [...]
"It was my good fortune to be deported to Auschwitz only in 1944..." Thus begins Primo Levi's preface to his stunning but short memoir of his time as a prisoner [...]
My shot of the outside of the synagogue. I love the mix of palm trees and live oak! Today a short note from my travels: I spent [...]