Yael Zoldan is a freelance writer and author of four popular children's books, including, "We Can Do Mitzvos from Aleph to Tav" (Feldheim, 2009) and “When I Daven” (Feldheim 2011). Her new books, “We Can Do Mitzvos Around the Jewish Year” (Feldheim, 2014), and “Shimmy Shambone will NOT Take a Bath” (Feldheim, 2013) are available in bookstores and online.
by Yael Zoldan M.A.
The Purim story’s eerie parallels to what the Jewish people are facing today.
They forgot that under the genial faces of their friends and neighbors simmered an ancient hatred. Are we making the same mistake?
Are we perpetually enslaved to our inner doubts, despair and anger?
They're not pretty. They begin when we put down the facade of competence and acknowledge that we can’t manage, we can’t handle, we can’t fix.
As the New Year is rapidly approaching, I’m relieved to know that this year I’m not asking for too much.
It may not be burning anymore but it still isn’t fixed.
As we prepare for our son’s wedding, I’m thinking of all the people who touched our lives.
From beggars and millionaires to Kabbalists and cynics, everyone was captured by my grandfather’s warmth.
Learning how to say sorry from our children this Yom Kippur.
In the terrible, wonderful paradox of the Jew in exile, we are permanently, gratefully, happy. And temporarily, terribly sad.
How my grandfather defeated Hitler.
I miss the mad sound of the language, the delicacies on doilies, the coiffed women with dangling earrings.
In a dark world, you must be the light.
Mourning for the wholesome world I once grew up in.
Because I’m a mother, I know.
Chanukah reminds us that we are not the same as everyone else.
My son is running against his best friend and I'm afraid.
In that temporary shack we felt our permanence.
Do I ask God for another chance, a chance I know I don’t deserve?
Sometimes, you have to throw away the script.
In a world of Facebook and Twitter, is anyone special? Preparing for Passover I discovered an answer.
This year, finally, my family will join the ranks of those paragons of virtue, those models of creative efficiency: The Ones with the Themes.
My grandmother and the terribly hot summer in Brooklyn.
My father's love asserted itself in distinctive ways.
Shavuot was the day my grandmother arrived in Auschwitz.
Passover is coming and I have entirely missed the point.
George doesn’t walk, he waltzes.
In my grandmother's room, it was as silent as death.
Lying in the bed she had no questions. Sitting at her side I had no answers.
Human Interest
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