“I come from a hot Yiddish mess of a family,” said Judy Batalion at a recent book talk in Boston sponsored by the Jewish Women’s Archive. That family, particularly Batalion’s unnamed mother, is front and center in her pitch perfect memoir, “White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood and the Mess in Between.” The physical…
Montreal, 1989 “Is everyone ready?” I called from my room.One of my eyes was focused on the mirror as I checked out my creation — an all-white “Working Girl “power suit from Jacob Junior with shoulder pads, a pleated skirt, and a blue and white polka dot shirt that sported a medieval jester’s 6-inch collar,…
We’ve reached a pivotal cultural moment in Holocaust historiography and memoir, poised between the final thoughts of the last survivors and the attempts of their children — and, more recently, their grandchildren — to make sense of their legacy. It’s a phenomenon with an equivalent in Germany, where the so-called Third Generation has been reckoning…
Gloria Steinem wants you to thank people who call you a b**ch. In an , the feminist pioneer — whose memoirs, “My Life on the Road,” come out October 27 — explained that the best way to shut down those types of insults is with simple acknowledgment. “I mean, it totally disarms them,” she said. “They…
“Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.” This quote from Ann Patchett sums up my feelings about writing — and it’s also how I feel about my chosen religious lifestyle. I grew up in a secular Jewish home and, as a young adult, was drawn…
A fabulous challah recipe from Jessica Fechtor’s Read about the book “Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home,” Marcella’s Butter Almond Cake Based on a tip from Andew Janjigian, a baker and editor at Cook’s Illustrated magazine, Jess folds the dough instead of kneading it, and lets it rise in the…
Bob Morris grew up on Long Island with two larger-than-life parents, Joe and Ethel Morris. In 2002, after years of illness, his mother died. Four years later, after a few good years, a few bad ones and then, essentially, surrender — there was a halfhearted suicide attempt — his father died, too. In a very…
Shulem Deen // Photo by Pearl Gabel (JTA) — Shulem Deen, the former Skverer Hasid who for years blogged under the pseudonym “Hasidic Rebel,” has just published a memoir, “All Who Go Do Not Return” (Graywolf Press). Deen, now 40, describes his sheltered life in New Square, the virtually all-Hasidic village an hour north of New…
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