sarah in nyc

About thirty years ago I was asked to make an atara to be a gift  for Jerry.  Jerry was one of the founders of an alternative Hebrew school in our neighborhood. Jerry was also one of the people who forged an alliance between the older mostly German members of our synagogue and the young counter culture former ( and still hippies) that were the new lifeblood of our congregation nearly fifty years ago. At that point, it wasn't the easiest marriage between the old guard and the new guard but Jerry helped to break down the barriers between the suit wearing older folks and the ripped up jeans wearing younger folks. Jerry has prepared thousands of kids for their B'nai Mitzvah. He is a frequent and excellent Torah reader and for many years he organized Morning Minyan. Jerry had often said that his favorite biblical text is the following: (יא) כִּ֚י הַמִּצְוָ֣ה הַזֹּ֔את אֲשֶׁ֛ר אָנֹכִ֥י מְצַוְּךָ֖ הַיּ֑וֹם לֹֽא־נִפְלֵ֥את הִוא֙ מִמְּךָ֔ וְלֹ֥א רְחֹקָ֖ה הִֽוא׃ (יב) לֹ֥א בַשָּׁמַ֖יִם הִ֑...

 Just a couple of weeks ago t was the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Sunday was Simchat Torah the day in the Jewish calendar when October 7, took place. Monday, our dear cousin who was visiting from Houston really wanted to go to the 9/11 memorial and the 9/11 museum. I had never been to either the memorial or the museum before. It just felt too raw to me given that we lived through the experience and breathed in that smoke for weeks and weeks. The museum brought up too many really difficult emotions and memories of that time. In thinking about this October 7, I had begun rereading the texts I had written to friends and family while we were in our son Aam's saferoom in Ashkelon where we spent the first two and a half days of the war. Ashkelon is about seven miles from Gaza. We could just see Gaza from our son's balcony. These photos of the sky taken in the days before October 7. Below is what I posted on Facebook on the 7th and 8th. In Sam's safe room in Ashkelon. We were awaken...

  Nothing makes me feel more like an old fashioned Domestic Goddess than the post holiday ironing of tablecloths and napkins.  I have lost track of the number of tablecloths and napkins that were washed and ironed since yesterday. There have been many dinners in the past few weeks that have required a step up in the napery department. Actually the thing that makes me feel the MOST like a Domestic Goddess is noting holes in said napery as I was ironing and then deciding to mend the holes--today. This is exactly the sort of advice that one finds in the introductory chapters to sewing books from the early part of the 20th Century. Mend those holes and rips as soon as you find them. These charming napkins came into my life, perhaps from the large linen stash given to me from my friend Vivian from her mother's and grandmother's collection. I noticed that one of the napkins was full of holes. The photo below is of the half dozen or so holes in the napkin. Just as there are many ways...

 As always, this time in the Jewish calendar, we are either celebrating a holiday, getting ready to celebrate a holiday or recovering from a holiday. Sukkot begins tonight. But in between being in synagogue and recovering from all of the prep I have gotten a little bit of work done. I have made progress since I took these photos. I am now in the process of embroidering the very last letter. You can see our new honey pot in the photo below. The fabulous tablecloth is a Vivian treasure a great piece of Central European hand weaving. Sukkot begins tonight. We only have one challah left from the batch I made before Rosh HaShanah. We will have that very last challah and since we are obligated to have two loaves on the Shabbat table I made a batch of rye rolls for the second loaf. We love bread however, we don't live on bread alone. We are having some London broil as well as a  spinach kugel. I can't swear exactly what spices I put in it but there were four eggs and some grated up c...

I am someone with a strong nostalgic streak. There are objects from my childhood that I have a strong connection to. Along the way, and through the years since my childhood, some of those object got broken some got given away and others just disappeared.   Clearly you can't own EVERYTHING that you were fond of in childhood all at the same time, because if you did you would have no room in your home to actually live. Some things have a pull. My parents were collectors of lovely things. They owned lots of Judaica. they also had lots of lovely china and silver. Among the objects in their collection was a Belleek honey pot. Belleek china as you might have guessed from the photo is made in Ireland. If you went into a home of someone with Irish roots there was likely a Belleek vase or teapot somewhere in the family collection of lovely things. (Just as if you went into a Jewish home in the 1960s you were likely to see a reproduction of the Chagall windows at the Hadassah hospital in...

 Yesterday I looked out of my window and  Brian Stokes Mitchell sang "The Impossible Dream" from the Juliette balcony on the right most nights during the 7:00pm cheer saw this scaffolding going up. All of you who live in New York know exactly what this is.  In 1979 a Columbia student was killed by a piece of  loose masonry hat fell from a building in the neighborhood. Since then, every five years every residential building in the city is inspected and every bit of masonry that might be a danger in the future is repaired. This law has had a couple of consequences. The first is that it has kept all of us safer. Another is that the law has been a boondoggle for  scaffolding companies, construction engineers and contractors. The scaffolding keeps the workers safe and also keeps pedestrians safe from falling rubble. As an additional safety measure after the scaffolding goes up a layer of screening covers the outside of the scaffolding. Being inside the the scaffoldin...