I take an odd (some might say insane) pleasure in untangling necklace chains. Today’s fixation is a dainty chain with a small silver charm hanging from it. A talisman of sorts, the charm is engraved with the Chinese characters for tranquility. When I reached into my jewelry drawer, the necklace…

The ways in which we memorialize the dead, privately and collectively In the aftermath of the Uvalde shootings a year ago, there was a phrase I couldn’t get out of my head. The mother of Amerie Jo Garza, the first of the victims to be buried, had posted a photo…

In the postwar middle-income housing project I grew up in, everybody knew, or thought they knew, everything about everyone who lived in our building. It was the late 50s/early 60s Brooklyn, and the mix of Jewish, Irish, Italian families was a reflection of economics and culture. There was the fireman…

A Wonderland on Wheels The first public library I ever walked into was on wheels. There was an elementary school, more than one synagogue and church, but no nearby library in the Brooklyn neighborhood of my early childhood years. Situated on the edge of East Flatbush and Canarsie, that maze…

Dear Instagram: How could you do this to me? I know you have a lot going on, what with shakeups and layoffs in the Meta world, but seriously — you disable my account when I diligently report another account impersonating me? My millennial daughter tells me it’s not personaI, it…

Keeping Families Together When They Fall Apart — My local fish market, owned by a generous-spirited, good-hearted Italian, started making gefilte fish for Rosh Hashanah several years back. Having grown up in a household where it was a Passover-only staple — homemade and delicious as it gets — only recently did I learn that for many Jews around…

My husband has a thing for Nazi movies, old black and white ones especially. He doesn’t have to search them out when he’s channel surfing. They find him, and into the DVR list they go. If I’m in bed with him and he stumbles on Casablanca, the surfing stops. Any…

Lifelong reverberations of moments written on the body On a Mother’s Day many years ago, I got the supreme gift of watching my daughter ride a two-wheeler on her own for the first time. The training wheels had recently been taken off and for weeks I would run alongside, one…

New Year’s Eve 2021, a night almost like any other. I open a bottle of smooth red wine, perfect for the meatball-and-spaghetti dinner in the works, my husband’s favorite meal. I pump up the volume, the “West Side Story” soundtrack, instant gratification made possible by Apple Music. Doesn’t matter that…