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The Piano

We had been preparing for months, slowly ridding ourselves of possessions we had once thought essential. By the time we left, everything that was ours fit into three brown vinyl suitcases. My parents told me this would be enough, but, like so much they said, these words of comfort were not particularly plausible. Still, there was consolation. On our last day in Russia, as the fall of 1979 slid into winter, my brother Viktor lost his piano.

A Mitzvah In Paramus

On a soaking-wet August day I stood under an umbrella in a Jewish cemetery in Paramus, New Jersey. Though the man we were burying hadn’t been particularly observant, the service was Orthodox, and everyone followed protocol: the other women and I huddled to the side while the men lifted the heavy casket.

Praying

A hundred-dollar bill, lemon cookies and a Wink soda, J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey

Passover Questions

I feel defined by loss, my shape delineated by the absence of those who used to surround me. The invisible membrane of love that held us together for so many years has become stretched, attenuated by time and space and death. But when I close my eyes and concentrate, I can still feel my son and my mother.

My Friend And Bruce Springsteen

Sitting in the center of the concert floor, we sang and clapped, but, as much fun as we were having, we were still waiting for proof of Steve’s story. As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait long. Midway through the concert, Springsteen leaned into the microphone and dedicated the next song to his new friend Steve.

Moonlight

In winter they would board the train to Vienna: Little Max, his parents, and his grandmother. They always traveled at night, and they always left on the same day, just past the middle of December. Little Max knew that it was the same day, year after year, and it confused him when he looked up one year and saw the moon was almost full.

Sunbeams

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow the teachings of the New, he would be insane.

Robert G. Ingersoll

Leap Of Faith

Yossi Klein Halevi’s Quest For Reconciliation In the Holy Land

On one level mystics and pluralists from different faiths have more in common with each other than they do with fundamentalists of their own religion. Sometimes I feel like I belong to two peoples: the Jewish people and a pluralistic people drawn from all faiths.

Dispatches From The Occupied Territories

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, cofounder of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, was assassinated on Monday by the Israeli military.

The Beauty Of Second Avenue

The foyer was home to my mother’s books but a place of exile for my brother and me. Around the time I was eleven and he seven, my mother began banishing us, singly, to the foyer without dinner in fits of unpredictable, unfathomable rage.