More in ‘Family’

The Emails of Zion is a collection of messages from Jewish parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and others who are eager—often way too eager—to inform their children about issues of pressing concern to the Jewish community. Some of these emails may sound crazy, paranoid, ethnocentric, and/or racist, while others are disturbingly sane. These are the voices ...

The reception area in downtown Manhattan’s Preschool of the Arts is a cheerful, modern space: dozens of self-portraits and paintings by children named Jem and Oliver and Esme crowd the walls. A small sign invites visitors to stop by the art gallery to see “action paintings created in the style of Jackson Pollock” and hangs ...

This article was originally published on August 23, 2007.
Freud said that “hysterics suffer from reminiscences,” although he didn’t have memoir-writing in mind. As I write my way back ceaselessly into the past, I wonder about all the things I only half-know and half-remember, random hysterical tics. Wasn’t I absorbing, all the time, the habits and ...

This morning, we mentioned the case of the Chicago man whose grandchildren were disinherited for marrying non-Jews. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that dentist Max Feinberg and his wife, Erla, were within their rights when drafting wills that made marrying Jews a condition of receiving a share of their estate. Legally speaking, this seems logical. ...

It’s no secret that Jews are often thought to be, well, thrifty, but racial slurs and comedy routines aside, it’s not the kind of thing we discuss much. In her new book, In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue, Lauren Weber takes on the stereotype and its evolution from Shakespeare’s Shylock ...

Last year at this time, Josie’s teacher made her write a letter of apology for slapping a frenemy. This week I made Josie write a letter of apology to her bubbe. (I’m not going to share her sin here. She behaved abominably; she’s mortified; and at seven, she’s old enough to have veto power on my writing about her specific crimes.) I’m moderately sure Josie doesn’t ramp up her vileness right before the High Holidays just to give me column fodder. But she does seem to be more on a hair trigger around this time of year. Our New Year falls just as kids are experiencing stressful new beginnings—the end of summer, the stress of school starting.

The panic probably came on slowly, but, as one fails to notice the gradual death of a light bulb, I somehow missed its approach. By early last fall, I found myself in a state of acute anxiety in which everything in my life—from my friendships to my magazine subscriptions to the city I live in—became subject to relentless questioning. Of the various irritants, though, none was perhaps as troubling as the growing ambivalence I felt about working for a Jewish publication.

One of my kids, I get. The other is a mystery to me.
My daughter Josie, seven, is hyper-competitive. She feels everything way too intensely. She’s a voracious reader. She struggles endlessly with moral questions. When she’s angry, she narrows her eyes into little slits and a vein throbs in her jaw. I understand her ...

“Overall, it was a pretty normal trip home.” >>