This post is in reply to Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s Forward piece, “Keeping the Conversation Going: A Daughter Speaks to Her Mother Across the Memory Loss Divide.” The visit to my Dad last week didn’t have an auspicious beginning. For the first time since he entered a nursing home two and a half years ago, he…
More than a dozen years ago, I wrote a plaintive column explaining why I was stepping down from a prestigious, demanding managerial position at a major newspaper to become a columnist and spend more time with my family. It was, I realize now, my Anne-Marie Slaughter moment. I wasn’t as famous as she, and I…
My sous chef tosses the salad and some of it ends up on the floor. He sticks his hand into the bowl, picks out his favorite ingredients and eats them. He takes a bite of a carrot, declares it “too hard” and returns the teeth-marked carrot to the bowl. Despite the mess, I think he…
Well it looks like the emasculated husbands who appear in the bulk of beer and car ads aren’t too representative of the typical American male. Men, it turns out, actually like being married and having a family. In a new survey from Askmen.com, 85% of men said they still believe in marriage, with 67% believing…
When my son Jeremy was 4, I took him to the Zimmer Children’s Museum, near my home in Los Angeles. The exhibit includes a replica of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, with paper for children to write their prayers and insert them between the stones of the wall. I explained this idea to Jeremy, and…
Israel’s medical establishment is reacting angrily to revelations that the country’s Health Ministry is working on a plan to make Jerusalem’s two largest psychiatric institutions single-gender. The controversy marks the latest in a series of dust-ups over the place of religion in the health care system since the United Torah Judaism party took control of…
This past weekend, my family and I went out to eat at a restaurant. We happened to sit near a television showing a wrestling match. The two wrestlers were locked in a hold. One of the wrestlers wore blue shorts; the other wore red shorts. “Go blue!” My 5-year-old son Jeremy cheered. “Why are you…
When sending the grandchildren holiday gifts, should we use Christmas or Hanukkah wrapping paper? This real-life dilemma actually came up at one of the interfaith couple workshops conducted for the past 15 years at the Washington District of Columbia Jewish Community Center. With 450 couples that have already attended her workshops, and her first DVD…
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