I’ve been thinking about what Azi Kahlili said. She is an Iranian born Muslim and Jew, a policy maker and important leader here in the US. She said that there are no human enemies. What we want is unity, among and between Jews, Israelis, Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians. Between and among all people, especially those […]
I’m trying to think of a word or a phrase or a way to describe the arc of a certain kind of relationship, a relationship a person has with a place. I want to describe what it is like to be in a place where I didn’t grow up. It’s a verb that I’m looking
Notes From Mexico City: “La Conquista Continúa” Read More »
From my tiny rooftop apartment in the colonia Coyoacuán I see the sun rise blood-orange red fading into hot orange and then silvery white and blue. On the horizon the volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl come into focus. I see the stunning main library on the UNAM campus. I am fascinated with this building designed by painter
Notes from Mexico City Read More »
Can anyone have a mezuzah? Or does it belong only to the Jews? A Cornerstone of the Religion The mezuzah is a sacred object that plays a central role in Jewish tradition. It is used in a ritualistic way. It contains our most important prayer, the Shema. Affixed to the doorpost, it defines the home
Mezuzahs are for Everyone Read More »
Eucalyptus Eucalyptus globulus When I was attending woodworking school in Northern California in the mid 1980’s I’d pass a grove of eucalyptus trees on my way to class each day. I still remember the trees’ wonderful aroma in the fog and rain and the way they shed their blueish bark in long strips. Recently my
The Living Room My father wore suits his father had made on a treadle sewing machine. His first language was Yiddish. My mother was born on the run, her parents fleeing the overthrowing of the Ottoman Empire and the ensuing anti-Jewish oppression. Her father was a coppersmith. She typed seventy words a minute on her
Breaking the Glass Dial Read More »
Here is the beginning of the cabinet, a single plank of European pear wood, almost twenty inches wide, two inches thick and ten feet long. Sawed near the center of the log it retains the full diameter of the tree. The truck driver and I unload the plank onto saw horses under the portal. It
A Cabinet from a Pear Tree Read More »
Some of the mezuzahs I make come to you with the bark attached and others arrive bark free. But why? In the winter, when the tree is dormant, there is no activity in the cambium, an area one cell thick right below the bark. The sap is not yet rising. But during the rest of
As a very young child, I adopted a sapling and named it George. It is not uncommon for children and adults to form close relationships with trees. We think of them as people, not to take away their “treeness” but to have them as our relatives and equals. The mulberry tree in this story never
There’s no Shin!In fact there’s nothing on the outside to identify the mezuzah as Jewish. The Jewish is on the inside, unseen. The Queen Esther Mezuzah holds the scroll on your doorpost secretly. In order to save her people, Queen Esther kept her true identity secret, and for that reason she has been called “the
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