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It’s a Jungle Out There Of the many inexplicable things about my parents relationship perhaps the most puzzling was their view on books. I scarcely remember my mother not having a book in her hand. She read at breakfast, during her commute to work, at night as she wound down. She brought books on vacationContinue reading “Its a Jungle Out There … Whats in a Name 3.4”

Sweet Sororicide The Old Testament attests to myriad horrors we visit on one another. The broad index of mans inhumanity ranges from expelling a woman with a young child into the wilderness at a jealous spouses request to wholesale genocide of rival clans, beasts included. It always struck me odd that I was taught inContinue reading “Sweet Sororicide … Whats in a Name 3.3”

The Art of Silence, When I was in Yeshiva I made it a point to ask every Rabbi what Gehenim (Ashikanizisized Gehenna, no relation go Gena) was like. The concept of hell is much more clearly defined by the Christians than the Jews. Christians devoted enormous energy to the the articulations of the architecture, leadership,Continue reading “The Art of Silence…Whats in a name Part 3.2”

Speak Memory, Childhood memories are notoriously unreliable. They are filtered through the gauze of time and emotion. Some memories are in fact nothing but concoctions, representations of stories which have told so many times that a movie of them has to be made, if not by Hollywood then by the mind itself . I haveContinue reading “Speak Memory….Whats in a name Part 3.1”

In the summer of 1979, after 9 years of being Gennady Aronavich Ortenberg, thanks to the democratic wisdom of a street football huddle in the Brooklyn Streets, I was baptized and renamed. My new American name was John. I had no idea at the time that John was the Westernized version of Ivan. Had IContinue reading “Whats in a Name Pt. 3”

The rest of the details of the trip are a fog. The bus route, the clothing I was wearing, what the weather was like… all are a memory blur. A theatrical background view from a thousand miles away. I don’t recall the season, though it could not have been winter, I don’t recall anything elseContinue reading “Whats in a Name Pt. 1”

Abraham was promised to be a leader of a great nation. All he had to do was leave his fathers house without a map. People underestimate the strength it takes to leave the familiar for a promise of something better. He was not told the exact location, the difficulty to be endured, the risk inherentContinue reading “Foreskin – $9.98”

For many of us Jewish-Russian emigres the word sojourner defined us. We lived among people of Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belorussia, Uzbekistan, Khasakstan but were not of the people. We ate their food, drank their vodka and read their books. We celebrated their holidays and tried as best we could to model our lives after theirs.Continue reading “Sojourners”

T     Yesterday I found myself in Brooklyn visiting the cemetery which is now home to my parents and grand mothers (my grandfathers have no graves to call their own. They are resting somewhere between Berlin and Kiev along with millions of others)…. Many of the graves in the oldest part of the cemetery areContinue reading “The Yawing Grave”

If you had asked my maternal grandmother why your nose is itchy, she would have told you it’s because someone is missing you. Itchy palm? Well, that meant someone owed you money. She also insisted that if you ever mentioned any good news or words of good fortune out loud they must be followed byContinue reading “Whats in a Name Pt. 2”