Adventures in Mama-Land

Even in Canada, I knew there were two ways of saying a person died: מת/ meit and נפטר/ niftar . In general, religious people use niftar, even when speaking English – it’s the more polite way of saying it, like “passed away.” But when my father died, eleven years ago tomorrow, and a taxi came to take me to the airport, I told the driver we were hurrying because I had to get back to Toronto because “ abba sheli meit .” There are lots of words you use in religious life that aren’t used so much in contemporary Israeli Hebrew, and so I was just taking a stab at the best possible way of saying it. But Israel being Israel, the cab driver decided it was time for a grammar lesson. “ Niftar . We say he was niftar .” Boy, did I know. (And also – is it my imagination, or only in Israel would a cab driver have the chutzpah correct someone who has just told you their father has died minutes before… ?!) These days, I have a habit that makes my 14-year-old daughter (“I’m basically 15”) cringe: tel...

How often do you lie down with your kids?  When they're little, obviously, it happens all the time, when you're nursing them, or trying to coax them to sleep.  These days, with my youngest kids 12 and 14 years old, I don't really have an excuse anymore. But really, why don't we? Why not lie down with your kids, cuddle them, cherish them?  Hold onto them not in a way that's clingy and all about our needs, as parents and imperfect human beings, but about them and how special and unique they are? Sometimes, when I start out writing about something, whether it's a blog or story or article, I don't know exactly what it's about until I get to the end.  Maybe, if you write, this happens to you, too? And then at the end, there’s this "aha" moment, and I realize what was really on my mind the whole time.  After I wrote almost this entire post, I looked back and was startled to realize that it probably emerged here and now because of the spectr...

In the leadup to Canada's federal elections tomorrow*, there's been lots of talk about whether expatriate Canadians should have the right to vote.  * (yeah, I know, super-awesome that they did it again on a Jewish holiday!) Last time around, we didn't.  They changed the law to say you could only vote if you'd been gone less than 5 years and intended to return.  We were under 5 years, but couldn't honestly say we planned to return to live in Canada.  So our rights were taken away. But this year, in response to a legal challenge from a pair of Canadians abroad, the Supreme Court reinstated our rights.  The 5-year condition, they said, made no sense and hadn't been instituted in response to any particular problem, real or perceived.  Still -- lots of Canadians, including some of my beloved family members, don't think we should be voting.  They're not alone.  I don't have statistics, so I can't say most, but I know many people back there feel ...

Fabric softener commercials have convinced most of us that the best, maybe even only good way for towels to be is... fluffy.  Just pop them in the dryer with the right product and presto, they're baby soft in minutes. But why?  Why is fluffy the only or better way? After years of air-drying laundry, I'm going to be brave enough to step up here in this public forum and say it:  three cheers for crispy towels! A crispy towel is STRONG.  Sturdy.  Tactile.  Japanese people apparently love the idea of scrubbing off yinky dead skin.  A crispy towel can do that for you.  It can practically

Dear Diversity: I’m mad at you and I’m mad at me. I’m mad at you because you’ve slammed the door in my face. On my face: my white, white face. Because Europe was so kind to my people, right? You say privilege like it means something. But believe me, the only gift Europe ever gave us was our lovely pale skin. But for you, diversity, that seems to be enough, because that’s all you see when you look at me. But wait, there’s more, because somehow, you’ve decided that not only are me and my people

I’ve been thinking about zeroes quite a bit lately… mostly because my upcoming birthday has one at the end of it.  If you think about it, it’s strange, how much fuss we make over birthdays that end in 0.  So arbitrary.  Hashem made us with 10 fingers so we figure the world revolves around that number somehow.  If my 11-fingered kid ran the world

Not long after we moved to Israel, I found Naomi Rivka, who was 8 at the time, playing with her Barbies.  The Barbies were all dressed up, as usual, but there was something new: one the head of one, Naomi Rivka had wound a delicate assemblage of toilet paper and lace, towering high and graceful over the doll's pretty, slender face. Here in Israel, we were suddenly surrounded by beautiful, graceful, slender young married Sephardi women, for whom a tichel, piled as high as possible, is the de rigeur headware -- and that was exactly how Naomi Rivka wanted her Barbie to look. And because 8-year-old girls are reasonably transparent, chances were good that that was how she herself wanted to look someday.  Tall, slim, high cheekbones, okay... those may be genetic factors.  But gloriously crowned in a high, swirling tichel... that's something you learn from your environment.  That's something little girls pick up from looking around and role playing years, and even decades...