Milo, the protagonist of “The Phantom Tollbooth,” may be just ten years old. But readers may recall he experiences a very grown-up brand of ennui. “Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he’d bothered,” we learn of Milo in the first pages of the children’s…
If you think female rabbis are a modern phenomenon, Sigal Samuel is here to change your mind — just like she changed hers. Samuel grew up in an Orthodox community where the idea of female clergy was considered deeply untraditional. So when, deep in an “internet rabbit hole,” she stumbled on the story of the…
This piece was originally published on the Eldridge Street Museum’s blog. Millions of families, including my own, are heading into an tenth week of staying at home. And there’s no official end date in sight. I find myself grasping at ways to keep my toddler-aged child engaged and entertained while preserving some shred of sanity…
This article was originally published on We Need Diverse Books here. We’re pleased to welcome Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman to discuss their anthology It’s a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories and their careers as authors. Get ready to fall in love, experience heartbreak, and discover the true meaning of identity in…
When I was a little girl attending public school in northern New Jersey, I would get excited every time I saw a Jewish person represented in a story. Growing up on a steady diet of Dr. Seuss, “The Black Stallion” and “A to Z Mysteries,” I noticed that there were hardly any Jewish characters in…
In Jewish ritual life, not everyone is a leader, but everyone has a role. Traditionally, that role has been circumscribed for women, but a growing number of children’s picture books have sought to expand its norms, depicting women as rabbis, cantors, and other figures of authority. From Mindy Avra Portnoy and Steffi Karen Rubin’s “Ima…
Prolific children’s author Monica Brown’s new “Lola Levine” series aimed at children aged 7 to 9, featuring five books so far, is earning enthusiastic reviews and reader responses. Each story, complemented by black-and-white drawings by illustrator Angela Domínguez, explores the challenges faced by a bookish and athletic young heroine of Peruvian and North American Jewish…
In the 1921 Yiddish children’s book “The Wind That Got Angry,” by Moyshe Kulbak, an “old, wandering wind” finds himself booted out of his village when a thaw sets in. He tries to find somewhere in the woods to rest. He’s tired and wants to sleep, but no one wants him around. The oak tree…
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