{"id":48380,"date":"2026-02-13T01:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=48380"},"modified":"2026-02-11T09:11:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:11:49","slug":"lifes-full-range-of-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2026\/02\/13\/lifes-full-range-of-emotions\/","title":{"rendered":"Life\u2019s full range of emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bonny Reichert will be in Vancouver on March 4 to talk about her new memoir, How to Share an Egg, as an epilogue to the JCC Jewish Book Festival, which runs Feb. 21-26. <\/i>(photo by Kayla Rocca)<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>When Bonny Reichert was a kid, living in Edmonton, her baba, who had come to Canada as a teen on her own in the early 1900s to escape pogroms in Ukraine, would come to stay with her family for the weekend and \u201cthe house brightened,\u201d writes Reichert in How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty<\/i>. \u201cShe arrived as though she were fleeing all over again, with parcels and packages and a giant soup pot wrapped in a tea towel, knotted to make a handle. Things were hot or cold or frozen. I didn\u2019t know to wonder if she\u2019d stayed up all night rolling and pinching and stuffing for us. Pekeleh, she called her bundles, little packages. Pekeleh also means burdens. Yiddish is like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with pekeleh, meaning both treats and worries, there have been many contrasts in Reichert\u2019s life, opposite things or states of being existing simultaneously. Her memoir is fascinating for the challenges she has faced and the way in which she has dealt with them. Readers can hear the award-winning writer in conversation with Marsha Lederman on March 4, 7:30 p.m., at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, in a JCC Jewish Book Festival epilogue event.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>How to Share an Egg<\/i> is the telling of Reichert\u2019s dad\u2019s survival story \u2013 a story he so wanted her to share. Experiencing years of difficulty putting pen to paper, she approaches it through her own journey with intergenerational trauma, which she has felt deeply from childhood. Her mother grew up with \u201ca dad who was quick to anger\u201d and an \u201cexacting\u201d mother who taught there was only one way to do things. \u201cThat this was the same person who rubbed my feet as I fell asleep seemed impossible,\u201d writes Reichert about her efforts to reconcile her beloved baba with her mother\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

Reichert\u2019s maternal grandfather, who had come to Canada in 1913, died before she was born. On her paternal side, she had no grandparents \u2013 her dad was a 17-year-old orphan when he came to Canada in 1947. His parents and five sisters were all killed in the Holocaust. He was one of the 1,123 war orphans Canadian Jewish Congress helped enter the country when the doors were only just starting to open again for Jews.<\/p>\n

The Jewish Independent<\/i> spoke with Reichert by email about her memoir.<\/p>\n

JI<\/b>: You were 9 when your dad first mentioned the possibility that you would write his story. Then there was the trip to Poland in 2015 that was a breakthrough. When did you actually write the first words and, from that point, about how long did it take for you to write\u00a0How to Share an Egg?<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

BR<\/b>: The very earliest work on the book started on that first trip to Warsaw with my dad. I took a few notes and some important photos, but I didn\u2019t yet know where I was headed. After the second trip to Poland, in 2016, \u00a0I had even more research and notes, but I still wasn\u2019t sure I had a book. The more formal outlining and writing began in late 2020, in the depths of the pandemic. Including the time I spent waiting for my editor\u2019s feedback and the editing, the book took about four years to write. I was earning a master\u2019s degree at the same time.<\/p>\n

JI<\/b>: You write about your personal journey with inherited trauma, and you share some of the healing milestones on that journey. In what ways was the process of writing the book cathartic?<\/p>\n

BR<\/b>: When you write a memoir like How to Share an Egg<\/i>, your job is to look at yourself very closely, but with objectivity, because the self becomes the central character of the book. In that close examination, you come to name feelings you previously couldn\u2019t name, and evaluate experiences and situations that your younger self might not have understood. All of this leads to greater understanding and greater self-compassion. This, coupled with the relief of finding a way to write this book my dad always wanted me to write, has indeed led to healing and catharsis.<\/p>\n

JI<\/b>: What does your dad think of the book?<\/p>\n

BR:<\/b> He loves it and says that it has given new meaning to his life at 95. A wonderful outcome.<\/p>\n

JI<\/b>: One theme of\u00a0How to Share an Egg\u00a0<\/i>is you finding your voice, being able to stick up for yourself when bullied, to be yourself in the face of others\u2019 expectations (notably, your father\u2019s). From where did you get the courage to be this open?<\/p>\n

BR<\/b>: You can\u2019t decide to write a memoir and then hide from the personal. Readers want to see all of that raw emotion on the page. For the memoir to be successful, the true, honest person in the book should resonate with the true person inside the reader. At a certain point, I realized all of this, and I came to see I was writing about the universal human experience and there is no shame in being human. In other words, I practised radical self-acceptance to get the job done.<\/p>\n

JI<\/b>: You comment in the book about pekeleh meaning both bundles and burdens. Judaism is full of those instances, holding joy and sorrow at the same time. Can you speak about that, in the context of How to Share an Egg?<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

BR<\/b>: People often hold a pretty stereotypical idea of what Holocaust survivors and their families are like \u2013 severely traumatized, loaded down with psychological and emotional problems, etc. I wanted to address that \u2013 to challenge it and expand on it. There is sorrow and trauma, of course, but there is also so much joy and gratitude and celebration. So, the book is meant to express this fuller range of emotion. Part of my decision to write it as a food memoir was to offer the reader pleasure and comfort, even against the backdrop of the Holocaust. A Jewish approach, for sure.<\/p>\n

JI<\/b>: Hedy Bohm, who you mention in your memoir, just had her own survivor memoir published by the Azrieli Foundation. What is the importance of having these stories out in the world?<\/p>\n

BR<\/b>: Yes, I\u2019m so happy for Hedy. She is a wonderful person. Preserving these stories has always been of the utmost importance \u2013 firsthand testimony is obviously critical. I also believe a plurality of stories and approaches brings the humanity back into the unfathomable numbers and statistics.<\/p>\n

JI<\/b>: How often have you been to Vancouver, and what are you looking forward to most about your March visit?<\/p>\n

BR<\/b>: I was just there in the fall for the Vancouver Writer Fest! I have friends I\u2019m looking forward to seeing and I\u2019m hoping for some nice weather so I can walk and admire your beautiful city.<\/p>\n

For the full schedule and tickets to the book festival, go to jccgv.com\/jewish-book-festival<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bonny Reichert will be in Vancouver on March 4 to talk about her new memoir, How to Share an Egg, as an epilogue to the JCC Jewish Book Festival, which runs Feb. 21-26. (photo by Kayla Rocca) When Bonny Reichert was a kid, living in Edmonton, her baba, who had come to Canada as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784,4],"tags":[24620,6073,4242,9857,4526,2893],"class_list":["post-48380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-local","tag-bonny-reichart","tag-food","tag-history","tag-jcc-jewish-book-festival","tag-memoir","tag-survivors"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}