I love the home my family has created. We moved into our house with our 2-year-old son, Josh, when I was seven months pregnant with my daughter, Lauren. It was 105 degrees that smoldering July day in Tucson almost 28 years ago, and we have remained here ever since. Our home contains a lifetime of…
Ever since I can remember, I have been in a relationship with God. Despite growing up in a family of agnostics, I always believed in, and even felt, the presence of God in my world. My idea of God as a child was that of a Biblical God – all-knowing, omnipotent, fatherlike and ubiquitous. My…
As a child, I always dreaded going to Hebrew School. Although it was only a few blocks from my public school, the lonely bike ride felt like miles as I watched my friends walk away in the opposite direction, arms linked together like a human gum wrapper chain. Being Jewish in the small town where…
The Portland Jewish Film Festival, which annually attracts thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish filmgoers, this year presents a very diverse array of 17 films during its two-week plus run. The 22nd annual PJFF is presented by the Northwest Film Center in partnership with the Institute of Judaic Studies June 15-29. This year’s festival includes films…
This week I got a phone call from my daughter in San Francisco, the very same daughter who, six months ago, was struggling to figure out what to do post-college with a degree in anthropology. She is interning at a nonprofit agency by day and waitressing at night, having the time of her life as…
The year was 1976: America celebrated its 200th birthday, Alex Haley published Roots, the Dow Jones closed at 1004, and I arrived in Tucson with a backpack, a college degree and $80 in my pocket. My parents were less than thrilled with my postgrad decision to hitchhike across the country to “find myself.” Tucson was,…
