My household’s really into learning. It doesn’t stop during the summer, when there’s no school. Even on vacations, we’re always trying to nurture our kids’ curiosity and feed our own. When our kids were in preschool, and just toilet-trained, we took…
It is sunny today. (Some other today!) I am on my balcony watching birds fly. The sky is blue everywhere, unharried by even a wisp of cloud. There are sailboats on the water and there is snow on the mountaintops.…
Before Passover, a relative of ours in New Jersey asked if we would have problems getting Manischewitz wine. I told her all would be fine. Even though US alcohol had been taken off Manitoba’s shelves, we would just buy other…
Several Iranian missile barrages targeted residential areas in Ramat Gan and other areas of Israel. (photo by Yoram Sorek / Wikimedia Commons) A missile alert blared! Early Friday morning, like 2 a.m. early, we ran into our saferoom, seemingly to…
On June 21, at Ohel Yitzhak in Nahalat Shiva, Gil Zohar celebrated the 57th anniversary of his bar mitzvah. (photo Gil Zohar) Man plans, God laughs, goes the Yiddish aphorism. For the last half year, I have been diligently learning…
I recently participated in a conference panel on hope in a time of divisive politics. A friend in the Jewish community couldn’t do it, so she asked me to help instead. I won’t lie, I felt nervous. I worried that…
My family’s in the middle of a month of celebrations. June is always this way at our house, but it’s even more intense this time around. In a “usual” June, we celebrate two family birthdays and a wedding anniversary; it’s…
When does something begin? I’ve been thinking about that as I go through 95 years’ worth of Jewish Independents. Well, 20 years of JIs and 75 years of its predecessor, the Jewish Western Bulletin. The JWB also had its predecessors…
When we moved to Canada for my husband’s academic job in 2009, we had work permits. Mine stated I couldn’t work with children or do farmwork. I’d previously been a teacher, but, with this work permit, I only taught adults.…
As a member of the Jewish community, I’ve come to recognize a powerful truth: when crisis strikes, we show up. That’s who we are. It’s not performative. It’s not for headlines. It’s rooted in Jewish values that demand action –…
