Deborah Kolben
By Deborah Kolben
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News Jewish Day Care Is Missing Link
I recently attended a workshop for parents in Brooklyn on how to choose a preschool. I’ll spare you my rant about how it’s insane that we need a workshop on this. But there I sat, along with a dozen other parents in our semicircle, dutifully taking notes on things like the Montessori and Reggio Emilia…
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Life The Supreme Court and the Single Gal
It’s hard not to get excited about the nomination of Elena Kagan to replace Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. If seated, she would bring the number of women on the Supreme Court to three, the number of Jewish women to two, and the total number of Jews on the bench…
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Life Notes on My First Mother’s Day as a Mother
On Sunday morning I got an e-mail telling me not to go near the dishes and instead give myself a pat on the back. “This is your special day,” read the note from one of the many parent sites to which I now subscribe. The reason for the kudos was Mother’s Day. And, well, I’m…
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Life Is My Baby Girl Too F-t?
My mother-in-law just sent me an article entitled “When is your chubby baby too chubby” I wouldn’t take it so personally if I wasn’t already a little worried about my four-month-old daughter. When I took Mika in to the doctor for her most recent check-up, the nurse started chuckling when she looked down at the…
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Culture Toward a Greener Judaism
A few weeks before taking up her new post as executive director of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, Sybil Sanchez moved from Queens to the Bronx. She decided to make it an environmental move as well. That meant gathering boxes from local stores, opting out of excessive packaging and giving her old…
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Life Asking for Maternity Leave and Childcare — Not for Permission
Okay, I’m jumping back in the ring. When I wrote recently about feeling like a bad feminist for wanting to stay home with my newborn daughter, I didn’t expect quite the response I got. Elana, while I do take issue with some of what you have to say, you’re spot on that women should stop…
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Life Free To Be … at Home With My Daughter
A few days before my daughter, Mika, turned 11-weeks-old, I received a package from my mother. It included an adorable snowsuit for Mika and a copy of the CD “Free to Be… You and Me,” ostensibly also for Mika. For those of you who don’t remember, the album, produced by Marlo Thomas in 1972, uses…
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News My Obstetrician’s Rx: Liverwurst
When I moved to Berlin last year, I settled into a Bohemian-chic neighborhood in what was formerly East Berlin. Despite Germany’s declining birth rate — the once decaying buildings here, where coal ovens and shared bathrooms have been replaced with stainless steel kitchens and cupboards filled with organic muesli — are packed with babies. It’s…
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