This is the third part of a four-part article originally appearing in the Spring 2011 issue of Lilith Magazine. Read the first part here and the second part here. Shvigern / Mothers-in-Law When couples married they did not necessarily become autonomous heads of their own households. Many a new bride — often a teenager in an arranged marriage — moved in…
This is the second part of a four-part article originally appearing in the Spring 2011 issue of Lilith Magazine. Read the first part here. FIGHTING BACK Soreles khasene / Sarah’s Wedding When Sorele wed, people laughed and scoffed. Why the laughter? The brand new bride Couldn’t even make kugl for Shabbes. She began on Wednesday morning Finished…
This is the first part of a four-part article originally appearing in the Spring 2011 issue of Lilith Magazine. Picture the stairwell in the poor apartment: the neighbor descends the steps and the woman in the doorway repeats, “Good night, good night,” and then haltingly speaks the words: “He hit me yesterday. I’m black and…
Ronny Wasserstrom, left, as Mr. M, accomanied by his pigeon, center, played by Theresa Linnihan, and his shadow, right, played with finger puppets by Michelle Beshaw. Photo by Lee Wexler. In its evocation of “Terezin humor” — the grim recognition that if we didn’t laugh, we’d hang ourselves — “Mr. M,” by the Czechoslovak-American Marionette…
I never learned to speak Yiddish. As a child in the 1950s and ‘60s, it was the language of my grandparents, the language that my parents only spoke when they didn’t want me or my brothers to understand what they were talking about (and I don’t think they spoke it when my childhood friend Michael…
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