JW Magazine: Spring 2015

Spring 2015

Facing Down Campus Sexual Assault Being Jewish and Black Innovative Animal Rescuers Macaroon or Macaron?

Seder Recipes from Paula Shoyer and Janna Gur

Rabbi Sherre Hirsch "Freedom is the realization that you are not alone in your journey."

$3.00 jwmag.org

a publication of Jewish Women International

SPRING 2015

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CHAIR’S MESSAGE

6 GIRLS, PUT YOUR RECORDS ON…

Mama Doni’s Passover Prep Playlist

7 THE CLEANSING POWER OF “DIRTY LAUNDRY”

The Seder gives us each permission to tell our personal story of enslavement honestly and openly, taking an important step toward freedom

BY RABBI SHERRE HIRSCH

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PASSOVER PREP

Creative Judaica and gifts for a hoppin' Seder

15 AMAZING GRACE

photo by Drew Kelly

Grace Day has blazed a trail for women lawyers in the state of Missouri

BY SUE TOMCHIN

18 WOMEN TO WATCH 2014 HIGHLIGHTS JWI’s 14th annual Women to Watch gala luncheon and awards honored an inspiring class of Jewish women role models

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JEWISH AND BLACK

BY RAHEL MUSLEAH

In getting at the truth of her own complex heritage, filmmaker Lacey Schwartz captures the ethos of a generation juggling multiple identities

25 CREATURE COMFORT

Rescuing animals is only the beginning for the daring and compassionate women behind these innovative programs

BY SUE TOMCHIN

33 MARVELOUS MACARONS

Whether glamorous or homey (and you spell them with one “o” or two), these confections are naturally gluten-free and ideal for Passover – or any time

BY JAYNE COHEN

42 WHO NEEDS CHOMETZ?

Paula Shoyer’s gorgeous new cookbook will make you wish every day was Passover

BY MEREDITH JACOBS

JW Magazine | jwmag.org

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JWI recently released two new workshop programs for teens and college students:

examines the messages and pressures around gender and the impact on dating and relationships;

Volume 17 Number 3 EDITOR

Susan Tomchin a project of JWI

encourages young people to identify and assert their needs to set boundaries and build healthy relationships.

Download these and other free JWI programs at

JWI.ORG/TEENS My favorite Passover dessert was a box of about a dozen tiny chocolate rectangles all flavored differently – orange, coffee, and I don't even recall the other flavors, but they were so pretty; wrapped individually with pictures to show the flavor inside.

The illustrations looked like they were straight out of the 1960s.

Those chocolates will forever be "Passover" to me. I wish they still made them!

Mayim Bialik

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Danielle Cantor CEO/EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Loribeth Weinstein VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

Meredith Jacobs BOARD OF TRUSTEES Laurie Moskowitz Kim Oster-Holstein, Chair Vivian Bass, Vice Chair Diane Radin Nicole Feld Deena Silver Susan Feldman Beth Sloan Meryl Frank Ellen Stone Toby Graff Susan W. Turnbull Mardi Kunik Sandy Unger Erica Leatham Suzi Weiss-Fischmann

JW is published twice annually in print by JWI, and year-round online. Inspired by our legacy of progressive women’s leadership and guided by our Jewish values, JWI works to ensure that all women and girls thrive in healthy relationships, control their financial futures and realize the full potential of their personal strength.

The subscription rate is $18 per year, which is included in annual membership dues to JWI. Postmaster: Please send address changes and inquiries to JW, 1129 20th Street NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20036. © Contents JWI 2015 The articles and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the view of JWI or any member thereof. Advertising in JW does not necessarily imply editorial endorsement or guarantee kashrut of products.

Connect with JW and JWI: facebook.com/jewishwomeninternational JewishWomenIntl

1129 20th Street NW, Suite 801 Washington, DC 20036 jwi.org • jwmag.org 800 343 2823 2

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photo by JSquared

youtube.com/JewishWomenIntl

44 DELICIOUS DIASPORA

Janna Gur is passionate about preserving and popularizing food treasures from Israel’s diverse immigrant cultures

BY JAYNE COHEN

52 ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

60 JEWISH GHOST STORY

The Spirit of Hannah Nordhaus’s great-great grandmother is said to walk the halls of the famed La Posada hotel in Santa Fe. The writer set out to untangle the truth from the legend that surrounds this woman who emigrated to the American West as a young mail-order bride

Fewer and fewer campus rapes are being swept under the rug – or beneath the quad – thanks to brave young women and prevention programs that work

TV legal analyst Lisa Green’s new book shows how the law can improve our lives and protect those we care about

BY ELICIA BROWN

57 ESCHEWING TRASH TALK

BY SANDEE BRAWARSKY

62 LEGAL BASICS EVERY WOMAN NEEDS

Leora Tannenbaum’s new book, I Am Not a Slut, challenges us to discard a word that damages too many women

Linda Rottenberg wants to help us all think like entrepreneurs

BY ARI EISEN

BY SUE TOMCHIN

63 A PEP TALK FROM A RISK-TAKER

58 SPRING READS

A serving of the season’s newest lit

BY SANDEE BRAWARSKY

64 ALL-TERRAIN GRATITUDE

BY SUE TOMCHIN

How “Dayenu” helped me find freedom

BY ROBYN LEBOWITZ

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The fall 2015 issue drops in August; call 202.464.4803 or email mjacobs@jwi.org to reserve space now!

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Kim Oster-Holstein Chair, JWI Board of Trustees

I love Passover for many reasons – the big family Seder at my parents’ home in Houston (with my husband always chuckling at the Texas-accented Hebrew) is high on my list, of course. But there are other, deeper reasons why it resonates with me. We read in the Haggadah that in every generation we should experience the Exodus as though we ourselves had been personally liberated from Egypt. In other words, we need to feel at our very core that freedom is precious.

Each of us must ask: How am I going to embrace the possibilities of freedom? How am I going to use it to grow, innovate, reinvent my life and improve the world around me? As Passover and spring approach, I am already reflecting about these questions and thinking about new endeavors.

The bold women we feature in this issue each answers these questions in her own way. A filmmaker wrestles with the complexities of her dual identities; a tenacious Midwesterner faces down prejudice to build a successful career as an attorney, a childhood abuse survivor creates a program that rescues animals and helps people; an Israeli chef preserves and popularizes the recipes of the disappearing older generation.

The women in this issue whom I’m most in awe of are college students like Ari Eisen who are courageously taking a stand against campus rape by speaking out about their experiences as survivors. I am deeply proud of what JWI is accomplishing in this arena: Safe Smart Dating, the workshop created in partnership with SDT and ZBT, is travelling to a growing number of campuses and, in my own city of Chicago, JWI is developing an assault prevention campaign for two major universities. I am thrilled that many young men are getting involved in our programs and that a contingent of them will visit Capitol Hill at the end of March.

Yes, the freedom to act is a precious gift. I want to share with you two of many opportunities that JWI offers you to use this freedom. The first is JWI’s Mother’s Day Flower Project. Can we count on you to participate and spread the word about it? The second is our new Book to Book capital campaign. We’re working to create 100 children’s libraries in domestic violence shelters by 2017. Learn more about both programs at jwi.org.

This Passover, I wish you the joy of family and friends, the stimulation of Seder discussions, and the resolve to make the most of the gift of freedom to transform your own life and the larger world.

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G

photo by Vjeran Lisjak

"Bluegrass Dayeinu"

on . ..

s l ir

r u r e c or o y t u d p s , Mama Doni

"Freedom" T  MAM IS

Average White Band

P SOVER AS

EP PLAYL

"Dayenu, Coming Home"

A

D O NI ' S

PR

George Michael

"Pick Up the Pieces"

"We Are Family" Sister Sledge

The Ein Prat Fountainheads

"Passover Medley" Barry Sisters

DONI ZASLOFF THOMAS (aka Mama Doni) is a mom, music teacher, songwriter, and lead singer in The Mama Doni Band, which celebrates Jewish culture in high-energy, interactive family rock concerts, CDs and videos.

She is also a founding member of Nefesh Mountain, a Jewish bluegrass band which will release its first CD in 2015.

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PRACTICE

THE CLEANSING

of POWER

The Seder gives us each permission to tell our personal story of enslavement honestly and openly, taking an important step toward freedom

BY RABBI SHERRE HIRSCH

JW Magazine | jwmag.org

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ach year, when my family and friends gather around the Passover table, I like to open my Seder by asking everyone to think about what enslaved them this past year, and to share it – not at that moment, but when they feel the time is right in the Seder.

A few years ago, my youngest, Levi, had just finished his attempt at the Four Questions (with the help of his older sister), as I continued in Hebrew with the Avadim Hayenu paragraph describing how we were slaves in Egypt.

I then asked Isaac, my cousin’s friend, if he would read the same paragraph in English. Nervously, he began, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and God took us from there with a mighty hand,” and continued to the end, “The more one tells about the leaving from Egypt, the more he is praiseworthy.”

At that moment, he paused and said, “Does this mean that it is praiseworthy for me to be in exile?” At first I was confused by his question. But before I could ask him what he meant by it, he continued. “I used to be in Egypt, and illegal substances were my Pharaoh. It was unbearable; and I lost my friends, my wife and even my livelihood. But now I am leaving that slavery. I am in exile and it, too, is incredibly difficult. I am tired and weary from all the therapy, meetings and effort I have to put in each day just to wake up in the morning. Even sitting here is hard. It is not just the allure of the wine. Just sitting here still trying to be comfortable in my own skin is almost unbearable.

My mind keeps racing and I have to remember to stay in this moment. But I just read that sitting here and telling you my story is not only important but it is praiseworthy and it has given me strength.”

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JW Magazine | jwmag.org

Right then I understood in an entirely new way why we are commanded to tell the story of the Exodus. We all know that our story is not neat and pretty. And in reality, neither was Abraham’s. If you remember, God promised Abraham that he would become a great nation, but he did not tell him how long it would take. And it took a really long time! Once we were freed from Egyptian slavery, it was another 40 years until we received the Torah and another 360 or so years before we arrived in Canaan.

And the story the Torah tells us about those years are not sweet anecdotes of how we traveled through the beautiful wilderness together in bliss and harmony. They were in fact the opposite. The fourth book of the Torah, Bamidbar (Numbers) describes how we kvetched about the food and the water. How we complained to Moses about the trek.

How we challenged his leadership.

Even how we rebelled and suffered the consequences, death at the hand of God. It is not a story that shows us as a people in the best light.

But we are commanded to tell the story because if we weren’t, we would never tell it. Who wants to talk about suffering? Who wants to talk about the skeletons in their closet? Who wants to discuss when we acted poorly and mistrusted our family? No one.

We have been taught to keep our dirty laundry to ourselves, otherwise people will think less of us.

Just look at Facebook.

We carefully construct our posts to make sure that others perceive us in a good light. No one ever posts: “18 years of

"WE ALL KNOW THAT IF YOU'VE BEEN MARRIED TO THE SAME PERSON FOR 18 YEARS, NOT EVERY DAY HAS BEEN CHOCOLATE AND ROSES. BUT WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DISCUSS THAT. WE ARE TOLD, TALK ABOUT YOUR SUCCESSES... KEEP YOUR PROBLEMS TO YOURSELF."

challenges and struggles but we are still surviving.” Rather the post reads: “18 years of marital bliss.” Come on.

We all know that if you've been married to the same person for 18 years, not every day has been chocolate and roses. But we are not supposed to discuss that. We are told from a young age, talk about your successes. Display your awards, announce your promotions, and publicize the greatness of your children. Keep your problems to yourself.

Except that the Haggadah tells us on one of the most important holidays of our year to talk about our Exodus from Egypt. Talk about the struggles and difficulties. And it even goes further to say that, when you do, “it is praiseworthy,” because Judaism knows that it takes tremendous courage and strength to tell that story. It is easy to talk about everything that you have achieved; but it is much more difficult to talk about the blood, sweat and tears it took to get there. Part of us always wants it to look easy. Yet Judaism is telling us to go against that instinct.

Be vulnerable and honest. Share with others on this holiday that this journey called life can be bumpy; that not every road traveled will be paved with rainbows.

It will not drag down the mood of your Seder table. Isaac did not lessen the spirit or dampen the atmosphere.

To the contrary; he inspired it. After he shared with such openness and honesty, each one of us, including my four small children, began to open up about their own struggles. The discourse became a rich exchange of love and support between one another, the kind of conversation I had only dreamed of having at my Passover Seder table.

Every one of us has a story of enslavement. Maybe we were not addicted to drugs and alcohol like Isaac, but we all have stories about freeing ourselves from the shackles of something, be it an addiction, a bad relationship, or any bad life situation from which we want to break free. We all have stories about how we worked to transcend these situations, about how we tried again and again to free ourselves physically, spiritually and emotionally from those feelings of being oppressed, subjugated and controlled by someone or something else. And, for most of us, that story may not even be close to over. We may be in the midst of it right now, on this very Passover.

Talking about these struggles is not easy – not for the ancient Jews, not for those, like Isaac, enslaved by addiction; not for anybody. But only by acknowledging them, embracing them, and sharing them can we begin to learn from them – and inspire others to do the same.

the realization that you are not alone and isolated in your journey. It is the knowledge that when you trip and fall, others will be there to support you and help you stay the course. It is to know that your mistakes and missteps are not fodder for others to gossip and judge; rather they are moments for others to rise and lift you up.

This is why Passover is the most celebrated holiday of the Jewish year. It is the one that enables us to truly connect to the people in our lives because we are commanded to be vulnerable in front of them; to share the stories of our struggles. Passover is the story of our people and it is the story of each one of us. And when we come together we realize that maybe we are not yet completely free of problems. But that we are on the road to true freedom because we have God – and each other.

On this holiday I want to challenge you to be bold and courageous. Rather than talk about how you are enslaved by your demons, talk about what you are doing to try to free yourself from them. If you are struggling with your weight, talk about what has worked and what hasn’t. If you have struggled with worry and anxiety, talk about what you are doing and not doing to try and alleviate it. Do not be afraid to talk honestly and openly. For when you do, you will not simply be discussing freedom, you will be experiencing it firsthand.

Freedom has never been a physical place. Even in Canaan we were not free. Though not physically enslaved, we still faced a huge number of enemies, literally, as well as emotionally and spiritually. Rather, freedom is

Rabbi Sherre Hirsch regularly appears on television, writes for national journals and magazines and lectures nationally. She also serves as spiritual life consultant and lecturer for the Canyon Ranch Companies. Her second book, Thresholds, How to Thrive Through Life’s Transitions to Live Fearlessly and Regret-Free, can be preordered on Amazon now for an August 2015 release.

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PASSOVER PREP Creative gifts and Judaica for a hoppin' Seder

BY SUE TOMCHIN

FROG SALT AND PEPPER SHAKERS

by Quest Design, enamel and Swarovski crystals, $80; questgiftonline.com • 212.354.0979

JW Magazine | jwmag.org

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SYMPHONY KIDDUSH CUPS by Mary Jurek, stainless steel with blue or red enamel,$50 each; maryjurekdesign.com • 310.533.1196

Seder plates, opposite page, clockwise from top right: ISRAEL MUSEUM PASSOVER PLATE, ceramic (adaptation of rare Jewish ceremonial art from Spain prior to 1492 expulsion), $314, matching dishes additional $74; judaicawebstore.com PEONY SEDER PLATE, aluminum and mother of pearl, exclusive to Museum of American Jewish History, $398.00; judaicashop.net • 215.923.0262 FLOWER SEDER PLATE by Tzuki Art, lasercut metal, $575; judaicashop.net • 215.923.0262 RIMON PASSOVER PLATE by Shraga Landesman, aluminum with porcelain cups, $115; landesman-shraga.israel.net • 972-4-8360504 NAMBE WAVE SEDER PLATE, wood base with stainless steel holders and removable bowls, $200; shop.spertus.edu • 888.322.1740 MATZOH PHONE CASE from Sealed with a Case, available for iPhones 4, 5 and 6 and Samsung Galaxy, $17.99; etsy.com/ shop/SealedWithaCase

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VICTOR SEDER PLATE by Yael Vons Yarzin, ceramic, $325; shop.thejewishmuseum.org • 212.423.3333

CHAROSET DISH by A Half Cup of Sugar, an Israeli pottery group, recipe card included, $34; shop.thejewishmuseum.org • 212.423.3333

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AFIKOMEN SEARCH AND RETRIEVAL BUTTON, $29.99 for 10-pack; jewnionlabel.com • 877.809.1659.

PASSOVER COUNTING FUN BOOK by Israeli designer Barbara Shaw, hand-sewn on fabric, $39; moderntribe.com • 877.324.1818 SCARLETT AND SAM: ESCAPE FROM EGYPT time-travel story for ages 6 through 9 by Eric Kimmel, Kar-Ben Books, $5.95; moderntribe.com • 877.324.1818

Find more Passover products at jwi.org/passover 14

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ASPIRE

A M A Z I N G

Grace hen 19-year-old Grace Steinberg Day walked into class at the University of South Dakota law school, the reaction was generally one of amazement, if not open hostility.

It was the late 1940s and she was the only woman in the law school. “At the beginning it was pretty tough,” she says in a phone interview from her home in St. Joseph, Missouri, a city of 80,000 located 50 miles from Kansas City. “They tormented me to get me to quit, but I wasn’t going to quit. I decided I wasn’t going to let it bother me,” she says with Midwestern candor. “It was a different era then. In the East, women were probably more common in professional schools, but in the Midwest it was a rarity.”

Day, who retired October 31 at age 86 after being in practice for 64 years, has been a trailblazer throughout her career, refusing to let gender prejudice derail her as she forged a path as

a fearless litigator. A member of JWI and its predecessor, B’nai B’rith Women (BBW), since 1950, she rose through leadership ranks to serve as its international president from 1980 to 82, while still maintaining her busy law practice.

Grace Day has blazed a trail for women lawyers in the state of Missouri

classes, either. “One especially, made no bones about it,” she says, but by her senior year, when she had a class with him, he gave her an “A.” “I felt as though I had conquered the world,” she says.

BY SUE TOMCHIN

Day grew up in the small town of Onawa, Iowa, 40 miles from Sioux City. Hers was the only Jewish family in town. Her father had emigrated from Poland before World War I through the port of Galveston, and sent

“The men in my law school classes were all older and a lot more mature and worldly than me, since many returned to school after serving in World War II,” she says. “They would try to tell me the dirtiest jokes and stories in order to embarrass me. One guy who always seemed to have a two- or three-day growth of beard would come up to me and give me a whisker rub. I hated it.”

When a class on domestic relations was scheduled to discuss rape, her fellow students took bets that she would be too squeamish to attend. She disappointed them by calmly showing up for class.

Most of the professors didn’t want women in their

Grace Day during law school at the University of South Dakota

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for her mother four years later. Starting as a shoe repairman, her father then went into the retail shoe business. The family, which included Day, and two older siblings, a sister and a brother, went into Sioux City for synagogue.

Like many Jewish parents of the immigrant generation, her parents valued education. Day earned a scholarship to the University of South Dakota and thrived in her classes, majoring in speech and communications and excelling at debating. After finishing in three years, she decided to go on to law school.

Day realized that if she was ever going to practice, she had to go out on her own.

Though she was newly married, and finances were tight, she went out one day on her lunch hour, found an office and signed a lease.

“I had no clients and didn’t know many people in town so I offered to become a court-appointed attorney for indigent clients,” Day says. There were no public defenders in those years so she was called on often and gained substantial experience in trial work. Though initially “dumbfounded” to see a woman attorney in the courtroom, the judges and other attorneys were always respectful, she says.

Up until the 1980s, in some courts, all women were expected to wear dresses and a sign to that effect was posted in courthouses. Day recalls a judge instructing a female witness to keep her coat on and roll up her pants legs so they wouldn’t be visible when she was on the stand.

“The men in my law school classes were all older and a lot more mature and worldly than me, since many returned to school after serving in World War II. They would tell me the dirtiest jokes and stories in order to embarrass me."

Day decided to specialize in family law, because she liked working with people.

And her early clients were all women. “Women were treated so poorly under the law at that time, I felt I could help them,” she says.

“In those days, Women had limited rights when it came to court procedures in divorce cases,” she says.

“Since most women didn’t work, they were completely dependent on their husbands for what they had.

Facing down prejudice in law school steeled Day for what she encountered in the job world. Upon graduation, she moved to St. Joseph, the hometown of husband-to-be Milton Day, whom she had met in college, and began looking for a job. Most local law firms wouldn’t even consider her. At one interview she was even told: “Our clients would never hear of a woman being part of our firm.”

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When she finally did get a job, for $50 a month, she soon learned that she would be expected to handle primarily secretarial tasks. In 2005, when Day met with then Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in her chambers, she learned that the Arizona-born judge had had a similar experience in her early career. “No one wanted to hire her as a lawyer either – and she worked as a secretary!”

JW Magazine | jwmag.org

Grace Day (r) with the late Beverly Sills in March 1982, when the famed opera star and director of the New York City Opera received the Perlman Award, B'nai B'rith Women's top honor.

The house, bank account and car were generally in the man’s name. Women would often walk out of court with nothing. If property was held jointly, women had to file a petition to receive their share.” At the time, the preference was to give the mothers custody of small children and child support. The latter however, was “pretty meager,” says Day, “because people weren’t making that much then.”

Word about Day’s tenacious representation of her clients got around, until, finally, after many years, a man sought her out to represent him in a divorce case.

“He told me that he came to me because he didn’t want his wife to come to me first,” she says. Ultimately, Day began to represent as

many men as women and went on to become, wrote Alyson Raletz in Missouri Lawyers Weekly, one of the most “sought-after domestic lawyers in northwest Missouri,….handling thousands of divorce, custody and paternity matters.”

In her early years in practice, there was only one other woman in the legal field in the city. “She was a magistrate judge. We became friends and she helped me a great deal,” Day says.

Other women didn’t start coming along until the late 1970s. and the numbers grew in subsequent decades. “I tried to help them and would send them cases when they were starting out,” she says.

As her practice grew, so did the esteem in which Day was held by her fellow attorneys. In 1973, she became the first female president of the St. Joseph Bar Association. In 2011, she was honored as Woman of the Year by Missouri Lawyers Weekly, and appeared on the cover of the magazine in one of of her signature

hot pink suits. In 2010, she was honored by the YWCA with a Lifetime Achievement Award for “Women in the Workplace.” More than 1,000 people attended the luncheon at which she was honored.

Day practiced on her own for 46 years, working fulltime while raising her son, Douglas and daughter, Allison. “I did have excellent help, a woman who stayed with me for 35 years, and my husband helped,” she says, but “I made formula and washed diapers,” just like any other mom. Some women friends resented “that I worked when I had small children,” she recalls.

“But my children weren’t affected by the fact that I worked and really gave us no trouble,” she says.

Never afraid to stand up for her clients or herself, after giving birth to her first child, Day became the first attorney to apply for disability benefits. The Missouri Bar subsequently rewrote its policy to specify coverage for childbirth.

Both her children are now attorneys.

“When my daughter was in law school, women comprised half her class,” she says, acknowledging how much things have the strides women have made.

At age 69, Day decided to join a large local firm, which later merged with the national firm Polsinelli. At the time, she had intended to retire in a couple of years and wanted to make sure that her files would be retained; then she stayed on

another 18 years. She and her husband, Milton, a respected educator, had been married for over six decades when he died last fall.

Day says that her involvement in B’nai B’rith Women gave her opportunities to develop leadership skills, broaden her knowledge, and work on issues she cared about, first locally and later at the regional and national levels. Her professionalism and poise served her well as she mingled with dignitaries such as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Senator Ted Kennedy and renowned opera singer Beverly Sills, whom BBW honored. “I even sat next to First Lady Nancy

Reagan at one convention while President Reagan was speaking,” Day recalls.

But more than the dignitaries she encountered, she remembers the women with whom she worked on the BBW board. She recalls how they spoke out passionately for such issues as discrimination against women, reproductive rights, Israel’s status in the U.N., and freedom for Soviet Jews. “They were strong and fearless,” she says.

A compliment, indeed, from a woman for whom gutsiness has been a way of life.

Sue Tomchin is the editor of JW magazine.

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JWI's 14th annual Women to Watch gala luncheon and awards honored an inspiring class of Jewish women role models.

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(l-r) Vivian G. Bass, vice chair of JWI's board of trustees, honorees Lisa Reiner Cohen, Sunita Leeds, Caryl Stern, Julie Chaiken, Sharna Goldseker, JWI CEO Lori Weinstein, honorees Roberta Levy Liss, Rabbi Shira Stutman, Liz Schrayer and Jodi Macklin, and JWI Board Chair Kim Oster-Holstein

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2 Caryl Stern 3. (l-r) Sunita Leeds, Roberta Levy 3 Liss and Jodi Macklin 4.

4 Luncheon emcee Ophira Eisenberg and Lori Weinstein

7. Rabbi Shira Stutman 7 8. Guests listen to the conversation 8 during the honoree symposium 9. Liz Schrayer and 2013 honoree 9 Lisa Eisen 10. Julie Bender Silver gives the 10 Sondra D. Bender Leadership Award to Lisa Reiner Cohen 11. Honoree Jodi Macklin with her 11 mother, event co-chair Sandy Bobb 12. JWI's signature "Girls Achieve 12 Grapeness!" OPI nail color on a luncheon table

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5 Honoree Julie Chaiken and JWI Vice President of Marketing & Communications Meredith Jacobs

13. Congresswoman Debbie 13 Wasserman Schultz accepts the Women to Watch award for former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords

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6 Sharna Goldseker and Kim Oster-Holstein

14. Gabrielle Giffords' video message 14 to the audience

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photos by Michael Bennett Kress

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JEWISH

In getting at the truth of her filmmaker Lacey Schwartz a generation juggling

BLACK

own complex heritage, captures the ethos of multiple identities

BY RAHEL MUSLEAH

Lacey Schwartz grew up in Woodstock, N.Y., comfortable in the suburban world of bar mitzvahs and Hebrew school. Despite her light brown skin and tight curls, she believed she was the daughter of two white Jewish parents.

Her appearance, they explained, was the legacy of her swarthy Sicilian great-grandfather.

photo by James Adolphus

It was not until she was 18 that she pressed her mother for the truth, and found out that her biological father was black—a family friend with whom her mother had had an affair. The revelation changed her life. Today, the 38-year-old Harvard law school graduate and resident of Montclair, N.J., identifies as black or biracial, as well as Jewish. “I never really struggled with being Jewish,” she says, “but how I can be Jewish AND…”

Schwartz unveils the devastating impact of her family’s secrets as she wrestles with identity and race in "Little White Lie," a coming-of-age documentary she wrote, produced and narrates. It is traveling the film festival circuit and airs March 23rd on PBS’s Independent Lens (Littlewhiteliethefilm.com). Though her story is highly personal – sometimes agonizingly so – it reflects the ethos of a contemporary generation juggling multiple identities.

“It’s important to be able to talk about differences in an age where identity politics is increasingly complex,” says Diane Tobin, founder and chief executive of Bechol Lashon (In Every Tongue), an organization that promotes Jewish diversity.

Schwartz is national outreach and New York regional director for the organization, which

Lacey Schwartz and her mother Peggy in a still from the documentary film "Little White Lie"

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Clockwise from top left: Lacey as a toddler; Lacey's family at Passover; Lacey and her mother, Peggy; Lacey's Italian GreatGrandfather; Lacey at her Bat Mitzvah; Lacey today (photo by Michael Hill).

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provided funding and served as the film’s executive producer.

According to Bechol Lashon’s research, 10 percent of American Jews identify as nonwhite, Asian, Latino or mixed-race, and another 10 percent as Sephardic/Mizrahi. Intermarriage has also increased the number of mixed identities. “Lacey’s story is more complex than many but it’s a way for people to talk about their histories,” says Tobin.

Tobin is particularly moved by Schwartz’s courage in exposing her vulnerability. Indeed, the camera follows Schwartz to tearful therapy sessions, to confrontations with her parents, Peggy and Robert, to frank discussions with family and friends, even to the funeral of her biological father, Rodney. “I wanted people to be having these conversations [about identity], but I wasn’t even talking about it in my own life,” Schwartz explains. “I felt strongly that I couldn’t talk the talk unless I walked the walk.”

explore. She didn’t know what to do with the part of herself that was white and in the film repeatedly asks friends and relatives how she could have passed for white. “We saw what we wanted to see,” she concludes.

The film is also a portrait of her parents, whose marriage had unraveled when she was a teenager. Her father’s anguish takes the form of dismissiveness; her mother is willing, supportive and honest, open to making amends despite her initial fear. In a visit to the playground she supervised when she was 21 and where she met Rodney, Peggy Schwartz explains, “Before I was your mom, I was me.”

“I TRULY BELIEVED I WAS WHITE. MY FAMILY KNEW WHO THEY WERE AND THEY DEFINED WHO I WAS.”

The film, which took her eight years to complete, opens with her wedding day preparations. “For a long time I didn’t want to get married,” she intones. “I couldn’t create a new family until I came to terms with what had happened to my own.” Family photos and videos show her parents’ wedding and Schwartz dancing the hora in a white dress at her bat mitzvah. “I wasn’t passing,” she says. “I truly believed I was white. My family knew who they were and they defined who I was.”

Yet, she sensed something was amiss. A synagogue member told her it was nice to have an Ethiopian Jew in their midst.

Schwartz confided in her diary that if she could change one thing about herself she would have lighter skin. Her parents never said anything beyond the one comment about her great-grandfather. But the question of race became more difficult to ignore when she entered Kingston High School, which was more diverse. “Black girls would stop me in the hallway and say, `What are you?’ I’d say I was white.”

Her acceptance to Georgetown University shook the truth loose. Based on her photograph, she was admitted as a black person. “That gave me permission to be myself,” she says.

She joined the black student alliance. “One drop of black blood and you are black,” she comments. “For the first time in my life I felt I belonged.”

Afraid of losing the world she had grown up in, she kept her white and black worlds segregated but continued to

Though Schwartz could not heal her parents, she says she has found peace herself. “I believe in the power of the process. You have to be willing to engage in the process of reconciling even if it’s not easy. I started with a fair amount of anxiety and now I don’t have that anymore.” She encourages others to reveal their stories and have productive conversations about them. A companion website to the film [stories. littlewhiteliethefilm.com] offers a safe place to share them.

“Families are the building blocks of society, so how can we make larger social change if even families aren’t able to talk about these issues?” she asks. See your kids clearly for who they are, she suggests to parents. “Give them confidence and a positive self-image but don’t try to shelter them, ignore the differences or sugar-coat the negative things.” Schwartz hopes the film will catalyze discussion about the consequences of keeping family secrets. “This is a project about the power of telling the truth.”

Her own children, 15-month-old twins, are still too young for conversation. “They don’t even talk yet!” she laughs. In 2011 Schwartz married Antonio Delgado, a black classmate she met at Harvard. A Baptist minister – a close friend of the Delgado family – officiated, but the couple included Jewish rituals like breaking the glass. “The wedding was universalist,” she explains, adding that her husband is not religious.

“We wanted to have two officiants – someone from my husband’s life and someone from mine – but the rabbi of the synagogue I grew up in would not officiate.”

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In the wake of renewed conversations about race, the film’s release seems both timely and fortuitous. But, says Schwartz, many moments in the past decade would also have been perfect. “Now is a great time, but unfortunately it’s always a great time in this country. More than anything we have to have more real nuanced conversations and awareness of race, not just racism.” Racism is still a critical issue, she says, but the problem doesn’t just exist when a situation of racism arises; it goes deeper. “In the town of Woodstock racism isn’t really an issue. It’s a white liberal community that is blissfully ignorant of it, so we didn’t deal with it at all.”

Her first two films, made at Harvard, also focused on race: Schvartze, a short autobiographical film, and Legally Black, Brown, Yellow and Red, a feature-length documentary on minority experiences at the law school. She worked in corporate, civil rights and entertainment law at several organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union before embarking on her career in television and film production. She is co-founder and managing director of Truth Aid, which produces films and does educational outreach on social issues.

She was motivated to tackle her own questions about identity through her work with Bechol Lashon and Reboot, a

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collective of Jewish creative professionals who explore meaning, community and identity. “Reboot allowed me the space to think about what it means to be Jewish, why it matters and how I connect to it. It’s been inspirational.” She has received financial support from several Jewish foundations including the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, the Jewish Federations of New York and San Francisco, and the Righteous Persons Foundation.

At Jewish communities throughout the U.S. and on a January tour of Israel, Schwartz has spearheaded discussions and efforts to create spaces for people with multiple identities.

“Are young people being asked to leave a piece of themselves at the door or are all parts of their identities being acknowledged?” she asks. Schools and other educational organizations are now using “Passport to Peoplehood,” a curriculum developed for the Bechol Lashon camp.

Schwartz has clearly embraced her own identity. Little White Lie ends as it begins – with her wedding. “I thought about changing my last name,” she says. “As a kid I didn’t like it.

Now it seems perfect for me, a clearly Jewish name that literally means `black.’”

Rahel Musleah is an award-winning journalist, author and speaker. Visit her website, rahelsjewishindia.com.

CREATURE COMFORT Rescuing animals is only the beginning for the women behind these innovative and compassionate programs.

BY SUE TOMCHIN

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n a hot day in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles, Ellie Laks was out and about doing errands with her infant son, Jesse, strapped in his car seat, when she spotted a run-down looking petting zoo surrounded by a chain link fence. Always an animal lover, she parked, put her son in his baby sling, and walked inside. What she saw shocked and disturbed her deeply – listless pigs standing in accumulated excrement, a llama with a matted coat, an ill-looking goat with a distended belly, exhausted ponies being forced to give rides to children. Despite the heat, no drinking water was visible and the air was fetid.

FINDING SAFETY WITH ANIMALS “One of the reasons I probably identify with animals so much is that I understand that feeling of being overpowered, of being dominated, of having no voice, having no rights, not being seen as the beautiful being that you are,” says Ellie Laks, in a phone interview.

Born in Israel into an Orthodox family (her grandfather was the chief rabbi of South Africa), she came to the U.S. when she was a young child. Her early affinity with animals was neither understood nor appreciated.

Pets are a growing presence in American life. Sixty-eight percent of households own a pet (American Veterinary Medical Association), and 9 out of 10 pet owners say that they consider their pet to be a member of the family (Harris Polls). Laks and Raffin, both passionate pet owners, were moved to take their affinity for animals into new territory, creating programs that benefit individual animals, but also have outcomes affecting the larger world.

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Simon, Lak’s Australian shepherd, was a constant companion, but there were also a series of hamsters, bunnies, birds and other small creatures she either picked out as birthday gifts at the pet store or brought home from the woods to nurse back to health.

Her mother, burdened with caring for her and her brothers since her father worked long hours as a cardiac surgeon, would “grow tired of them, and the animals would be gone.”

After one of these disappearances, Laks screamed at her mom: “When I grow up I’ll have a huge place filled with animals and they’ll be my friends.

I’ll show the world how beautiful they are.” She clung to this dream through the ensuing years, even in her twenties when she had to pull herself out of the grips of a cocaine addiction.

By the time she left she had resolved to help. She ultimately adopted many of the facility's animals and nursed them back to health. Thus was born her life’s work: The Gentle Barn, a unique sanctuary outside of Los Angeles.

Michele Raffin had never handled a bird before when she picked up the wounded body of a white dove by the side of the highway and tried to save it.

That act inspired her to shift the direction of her life and to found Pandemonium Aviaries in Los Altos, Calif.

when she was playing at the lake near her St. Louis home. “I’d been taught by the babysitters to say yes and wait patiently until it was over. So that’s what I did with this man,” she writes. When she told her parents, her father blamed her and her mother dismissed her concerns, though they did stop hiring male babysitters.

“In the Orthodox community in which I grew up you were not supposed to go crazy for animals,” Laks says. “You were supposed to dress a certain way and act a certain way. There was this idea of normal that I didn’t fit into. In the human world I felt there was something off about me or at least that was the mirror I got from other people,” she recalls. “With animals, I felt safe, not judged, and could be who I am.”

In her recent memoir, My Gentle Barn: Creating a Sanctuary Where Animals Heal and Children Learn to Hope, she relates that male baby sitters sexually abused her as a young child. And then, at age seven, a man approached her

A few months after her visit to the petting zoo, when she looked out of her window and saw the menagerie of rescues filling her yard and barn, she realized her dream had come to life. The Gentle Barn, her program, was born.

First alone, and then with the help of her second husband, Jay, she took care of a growing number of unwanted animals – including goats, chickens, pigs, cows and horses.

“We were rescuing animals, healing them, building barns, building fences, planting trees,” she said. ”We did all the work ourselves. We didn’t take a vacation for the first ten years. Everything we did, we dedicated to our purpose. Our kids did it with us. It was a seven day a week thing. But when you are living your dream, you don’t feel like you are working because you are doing what you love.”

Ellie Laks' dream as a 7-year-old was that when she grew up she would have a big place filled with all kinds of animals and she would save them. “We would then open our doors to all the lonely people in the world and they would come and get hugs from the cows and cuddle with the pigs and the chickens so that they’ll feel loved.” She's realized her dream with The Gentle Barn.

Top: “I believe we haven't lived life until we have hugged a cow,” says Laks, shown hugging Buttercup, “a Jersey cow with a sweet and loving energy that makes everything better.”

Below: Ellie with Pixie, an orphaned goat who has found a home at the Gentle Barn; and young visitors with a friendly turkey.

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Now the Gentle Barn has 173 animals, a staff of 12 and 900 volunteers. “If people are moving and have pets they no longer want to keep, we refer them to other agencies,” Laks explains. “We only take in animals that other adoption agencies won’t take in, rehabilitate them, and typically they stay here for the rest of their lives.”

Once the animals are well, they help with the Gentle Barn’s other work: to heal children, seniors, veterans, women from domestic violence shelters, and others who are isolated, neglected or abused.

A group of young people from the projects in South Los Angeles, for example, has been coming for years.

“In the projects, you’re lucky if you see a tree amidst the concrete, barbed wire and brick,” Laks says. “There’s poverty, drugs and gangs and it’s easy for kids growing up there to think that is all there is to life. At the Gentle Barn, we show them open spaces and the colors of nature. They garden and grow real fruit and vegetables that they are able to take home. When they hug a cow, give a pig a tummy rub and cuddle with a turkey they are able to see something so different from where they live and begin to understand that the world is full of possibilities.”

One visitor whom Laks will never forget is Zach. A quadriplegic, he could bat his eyelashes and smile, but couldn’t talk and only had small movements in his right hand. No one recognized that there was intelligence trapped behind his disabilities. “At home, his family popped him in front of the television and in the classroom they parked him in a corner.” When his class of special needs high school students came to the Gentle Barn, everyone was given a project, but Zach was wheeled off to the side. “I said, ‘Absolutely not, he’s got to participate too.’ I brought Sasha, one of our horses, over to meet him. Sasha is really kind and loving and very beautiful. Zach couldn’t reach out to her, but she reached out to him: She

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started grooming him, using her lips; she groomed his head, cheeks and shoulders. At first his eyes were closed, because he was so used to not engaging with anyone that he hid in his own mind. She kept working on him, and eventually he opened his eyes and focused on her and started smiling and laughing and fully came to life. It was amazing.”

“We used the interactions with Sasha to practice his mobility,” Laks continues. “We put carrots in his hand and used the feeding process to exercise his right arm. By the time he graduated our program, he had full mobility in that arm. He would hold on to her bridle and we would push his wheelchair and he would feel like he was leading her. And he would laugh, smile and talk to us using his eyelashes.”

When the teachers and other students saw Zach interacting with the Gentle Barn animals and staff, their attitude toward him changed and he became a central part of the classroom. Everyone started talking with him and involving him in activities. And because the class was doing it, at home things changed too, and his family invited him to sit at the table.

“His life changed,” Laks says. “It took a horse to do it. Animals don’t have blinders on like we do. Sasha saw a being she wanted to interact with and she reached inside of him and pulled him out.”

Despite her childhood disaffection with Judaism, Laks now sees her work as intimately connected to Jewish teachings. “In my book I talk about how I didn’t relate to Orthodox Judaism. I had a hard time with it. Now that I am adult, I understand that kindness to animals is at the very core of Judaism. The very idea of kashrut is that we need to remember that animals are living beings and we can’t be so callous that we kill a baby and cook it in its mother’s milk. What I’m trying to do is to spread this kindness every day.”

"We used the interactions with Sasha to practice [Zach's] mobility...

We put carrots in his hand and used the feeding process to exercise his right arm.

By the time he graduated our program, he had full mobility in that arm.

And he would laugh, smile and talk to us using his eyelashes....

His life changed."

Read about Nina Natelson, the activist who transformed animal rescue in Israel, at jwi.org/creaturecomfort

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FOR THE BIRDS

The bird didn’t survive, but Raffin had been affected by the experience. She was still moping when she saw an ad in the paper placed by someone who needed a home for a white dove. She ended up with six of them.

Growing up in a close knit Conservative Jewish community in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Michele Raffin recalls that a Jewish teaching about animals made a strong impression on her. “I still remember being taught that a man feeds his livestock before he eats himself.” She was also fascinated with the story of Noah’s Ark, and the idea of rescuing animals and later even wrote an unpublished book about it.

East African Crown Crane

Her life has changed in ways she could never have imagined. At the beginning she rose each day at 4:00 a.m. and worked incredibly hard, even on weekends. Feeding all the birds takes four hours. “My kitchen is filled with cases of papaya, blueberries, melon, grapes.

We buy or are given seed by the pallet,” she writes. Now, she has paid staff and volunteers to look after the birds.

When she went off to college in New England and later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to work as a venture capital consultant in Silicon Valley, she volunteered at animal shelters.

“I’ve always felt a strong connection with animals, along with a deep revulsion for their suffering at human hands,” she writes. “The truth is I need them in my life. It’s a connection that settles and comforts me in a direct, non-judgmental way that people can’t often provide.

Victoria Crowned Pigeon

When she and her then-husband Tom, a physician, bought a house on an acre of land in Los Altos, there were always an array of dogs and cats about, along with their three young boys and her husband’s preteen daughter.

She had never held a bird before when, in 1996, she joined a health club and the trainer, who was supposed to give her a free training session, showed up late. He explained that he had seen an injured white dove on the side of the road and didn’t want to leave it. They drove together to check on it, and Raffin picked up the delicate body. They went in search of an avian veterinarian.

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Today, Pandemonium Aviaries, her non-profit bird sanctuary and conservation organization, has more than 350 birds, representing more than 40 species. Her backyard landscape has gone from a single chicken coop to an ever expanding complex of aviaries, “thirty-four and still counting.” The garage is “now crammed with incubators, caged birds on ‘hospital watch’ and a few thousand live, homegrown mealworms.“ And each morning she is treated to a symphony of bird calls.

Blue and Gold Macaw

All of her knowledge about how to care for and breed the birds has been learned by her own observations or by consulting other aviculturists. She herself is a certified aviculturist and is now a regular consultant to zoos and other breeders.

Along the way, she’s also learned that being called “bird brain” is “actually a compliment because birds are very smart,” she says. “I know that ‘eating like a bird' is not a compliment because birds eat a lot.”

She also knows that birds have emotions. Amigo, an Amazon parrot whom she reluctantly adopted because her son bonded with him, still doesn’t like her, she says. “I think he is justified. I argued against getting Amigo in front of him and he listened the whole time and has never forgiven me.”

Lorikeet

photos by Michael Kern (left) and Drew Kelly (right)

“As a toddler, my first friend was a puppy named Bow Wow. We crawled around together.” Later, as she recalls in her recent book, The Birds of Pandemonium: Life Among the Exotic and the Endangered, she became the “de facto animal rescue agent in our suburban San Juan neighborhood.”

Persa Persa

"If we don't save the exotic birds that were brought in from the wild to be our pets in the U.S., it's possible they will not survive. Why not use a resource that's right in front of our noses: Instead of making exotic animals into pets, let's conserve them so that one day we can return them to the wild."

Above: Michele Raffin holds Tico, a blue and gold macaw, while Shana, a yellow-naped Amazon parrot, perches on her shoulder; below: Raffin and Amadeus, a Lady Ross turaco; opposite page: a few of the 40 species of birds housed at Pandemonium Aviaries.

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“I had to adapt my personality to my work. Animals who are wild choose whether to accept me. I had to be a person they could accept. I had to be someone trustworthy and reliable.

I was a Type A when I was out in the business world, but now I can’t multitask. I have to pay attention and be in the present.”

Though her days are vastly different from her earlier years as a Silicon Valley executive with a master’s in management science, “All of my business skills have contributed to my ability to build this organization,” she says. Her attitude, however, is vastly different.

Over the years, Raffin’s rescue work has coalesced with conservation and environmentalism. Though she has kept the birds she already had in her care, she has now left conventional rescue activities to others. She concentrates on breeding the Columbidae, a family of doves and pigeons.

Their habitats in New Guinea are being decimated: rain forests are being cut down to make way for palm plantations to meet the growing demand for red palm oil, which is highly touted in the nutritional world. Raffin is working with six flagship species, and trying to build up a reservoir of biodiverse birds, so they can be used to repopulate the species in a protected habitat if they become extinct in the wild.

few years ago, it seemed the end was near for Harley, a 12-yearold Labrador retriever. He had an 18-pound tumor hanging from his side and could no longer get around. When his vet deemed him too old for surgery, his owners reluctantly scheduled the appointment to euthanize him the following week, wanting to spend one last weekend with their beloved pet.

In the interim, they saw a story on Good Morning America about vet Lori Pasternak and Helping Hands, her innovative veterinary practice in Richmond, Va. They brought Harley in for surgery and within two days he was up and around and able to walk upstairs for the first time in three years.

Pasternak’s business model at Helping Hands is unique: The practice is devoted exclusively to surgery, a skill that she enjoys and excels at. She offers surgery and teeth cleaning for pets at rates that are, in most cases, substantially below those of other vets, so pet owners have a financially manageable option and don’t have to resort to euthanasia. She’s able to keep her prices down because she keeps her overhead low and her volume high. (Prices are listed online so there are no surprises.)

“Veterinarians love me, because when they have clients who can’t afford a procedure, they can send them to me and know the 32

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“We chose these species with great care. There are many other species that were endangered but we were limited in what we could do,” she says.

“We hope to become a model of how this can be done.”

Pandemonium has the second-largest flock of Victoria crowned pigeons under conservation in the world. These elaborately plumed birds have “wonderful personalities,” Raffin says. At about a foot and half in length they are just a bit smaller than the dodo, their long-extinct relative. She has grown the flock, “bird by bird” with “hatchlings and acquisitions from breeders and zoos.”

“Doing something I think is so important has kept me young,” Raffin says.

“It has brought me in contact with people who want to save a piece of the world. I get to focus on saving this little piece and doing it with integrity.

Action is the antidote to despair.”

Sue Tomchin is the editor of JW magazine.

pets will get the best quality care,” Pasternak says. “I get the pets through a crisis and then back into their regular vet’s care. It’s a win-win for everybody.”

Now, 60 percent of Helping Hands’ clients come from outside of Virginia. “When you are quoted $8,000 for a surgery in New York, and can have it done for less than $1,000 in Richmond, it’s worth the car ride,” she says.

Sometimes a client doesn’t have money available for surgery and an animal is in a life-threatening situation. Under those circumstances, Pasternak will do the surgery and the owner agrees to volunteer for a specified number of hours commensurate with the cost of the surgery.

“We’re not a non-profit,” she says.

“The way we get the resources to do this is by charging everyone who uses our services an additional $5.

Then we donate our time and the owner donates back to the animals in our community. We call it our merry-go-round of kindness.”

Lori Pasternak

NOURISH

Whether glamorous or homey (and you spell them them with one “o” or two), these confections are naturally gluten-free and ideal for Passover – or any time a craving strikes you

Freepik.com

background by

BY JAYNE COHEN

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acarons or macaroons?

"I look at them both as cousins with the same last name," muses Dan Cohen, founder of Danny Macaroons, makers of creamy coconut-based confections in a bunch of imaginative flavors.

He's right, of course. Although we usually reserve the term macarons for those Parisian glamor puss dainties swanning in a rainbow of gorgeous colors, the word is simply French for macaroons – any type. And there are many.

Mangalore, a cashew-based macaroon, inspires Proustian nostalgia in Indians; for many Italians, a bite of crunchy intensely almond-flavored amaretti does the same. Ashkenazi Jews make homey little gems from every kind of tree nut, as well as coconut ones that can be chewy delights or like Danny's, velvety as the inside of a Mounds bar. And Sephardim favor maronchinos, almond flour macaroons luscious with marzipan and the scent of orange flower water.

In Ibsen's A Doll's House, Nora's craving for forbidden macaroons clues us in to her passions and secret life, an indulgence that foretells rebellion against her domineering husband.

If the only macaroons you've ever sampled are of the artificial-tasting canned variety of the past, it's hard to understand how a macaroon can be all that.

But there's more: Since all are based on the same ingredients – nuts or coconut, sugar, and egg whites – even the chicest macaroons can be kosher-for-Passover. (Flourless, they are gluten-free as well.)

Perhaps a pair of shiny hazelnut macarons embracing a schmear of salted caramel and created by LaDurée, the storied Belle Époque patisserie in Paris, do not bring to mind your typical Seder dessert tray. But for Blythe Roth, who owns Tova's All Natural Bakery with her husband, Mark, it made perfect sense. "We wanted something young and fresh and beautiful to elevate Passover desserts to a new level."

They also wanted a product free of preservatives and artificial ingredients that they would feel comfortable giving their daughter, Tova, for whom their New Jersey-based company is named. So they developed dyes from vegetables – their pistachio macarons are tinted pastel green with a spinach 34

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extract, not food coloring – and came up with recipes for the shells and fillings. Their macarons, OU-certified kosher for Passover, are sold retail in the New York metropolitan area and shipped nationwide.

Or you can make your own.

Sandwiched between mild-flavored, nut meringue shells sweetened with two kinds of sugar – regular and a heavy dose of confectioner's – the best macaron fillings offer contrast in taste and texture. Make yours with tangy jams, like prune mixed with chopped toasted walnuts. Or try creamy lemon curd; barely sweetened mascarpone flavored with raspberries and rosewater; ganaches, chestnut purée or chocolate given a slightly bitter edge with a dusting of cardamom or espresso powder.

But while making a filling can be as easy as opening a jar, the elegant shells are notoriously tricky to get right: smooth, uncracked surfaces; light crusts giving way to meltin-your-mouth airiness. Simple ingredients, yes, but the nuts and sugars must be weighed on a kitchen scale, not measured by volume. Then there is the requisite sifting, piping, the wait before baking. And for some macaroon aficionados, the finished product, whether homemade or purchased from a fancy bakery, is just not worth it.

Cookbook author Faye Levy finds most macarons overly sweet: "You need more sugar to get that texture," she explains. When she studied cooking at La Varenne in Paris, she remembers, "I much preferred the simple kind with a higher proportion of nuts to the fancy ones that came in all the colors."

"Macarons require a lot of baking finesse. Macaroons are so much simpler to make – very accessible, even if you're not a baker," Dan Cohen says. "And there's a lot of room for creativity."

The simplest macaroon recipes require nothing more than briefly whirling the three basic ingredients in a food processor then baking to a pale, tender cookie or a deep gold crunchier one, as you prefer. And easy, inventive macaroons are nothing new. The 1903 edition of The Settlement Cookbook gives recipes for macaroons made from a variety of nuts, including pecans, walnuts, and even peanuts, along with flavorings like cinnamon, cocoa, lemon, and jam.

While macaroons were traditionally made of almonds, Jews have been making them with coconut at least as far back as 1871, when Esther Levy included a recipe in her Jewish Cookery Book, the first Jewish cookbook published in America. And coconut takes well to additional flavors. Sara Berger's greatgrandmother's recipe – an heirloom her grandma shared in Cooking for Me-N-U, a fundraiser for the Infants' Aid Society of Chicago – is a wonderful amalgam of coconut, dates and walnuts (recipe at jwmag.org/macaroons).

Coconut also inspired Cohen, whose mother challenged him to come up with a delicious macaroon when he was home from college for the family Seder. After much research and experimenting, he perfected his own version based on old-fashioned recipes combining coconut with sweetened condensed milk. His unadorned macaroon, he writes in The Macaroon Bible, "tastes like toasted marshmallow gently kissed with coconut." Add to that more than forty-five whimsical flavor varieties, from maple pecan pie to hibiscus glaze, guava, bourbon, and salted caramel (the most popular), and it's easy to credit this cult favorite with something of a macaroon renaissance.

Of course, the most popular macaroons, both coconut and almond, were always the Passover ones in the vacuumpacked cans made by a single company, Joyce Foods. No, you wouldn't recognize the name: all the major American matzoh manufacturers sold Joyce macaroons under their own labels beginning in the 1930s.

But for the past ten years, explains Alan Adler, co-owner of Streit's, the only family-owned matzoh company left in the U.S., "we have been making our own macaroons in house.

They're fresher tasting and preservative-free, but that means shorter shelf-life. We don't even start making them until sometime in December."

So, macarons or macaroons? No need to choose – with our macaroon makers and the recipes here, have both.

Jayne Cohen writes and lectures extensively on Jewish cuisine and culture. Her most recent book, Jewish Holiday Cooking: A Food Lover’s Treasury of Classics and Improvisations (John Wiley), was finalist for a James Beard Foundation Award.

FRESHNESS:

Whether starting out with whole or pre-ground nuts, be sure yours are fresh. Rich in oils, nuts can deteriorate quickly, turning rancid or stale. To avoid disappointment, always taste nuts first and store leftovers in the refrigerator or freezer. While coconut has a longer shelf life, consider freezing it, too, if you rarely use it.

ALLERGIES:

An allergy to tree nuts does not indicate an allergy to coconut: While there are cases of coconut allergies, they are unrelated to the tree nut kind. That's because botanically speaking, coconuts are not true nuts, but like peaches, fruits in the drupe family. Much of the confusion stems from an FDA error including coconut in its list of tree nut allergies. If you are allergic to tree nuts, check with your doctor about coconut. A new world of Passover desserts may now be open to you.

DAIRY: If the recipe calls for cream and you want dairy-free macaroons, we suggest using coconut "dairy" instead of artificial processed "creamers." Coconut milk and cream will work in dulce de leche and caramel fillings – even the ubiquitous salted kind. For Danny Macaroons recipes, substitute canned coconut cream for the sweetened condensed milk. If your tradition requires special certification for Passover use, one brand, Natural Choice, makes both coconut milk and coconut cream, OU-certified (though not specifically for Passover), and neither contains anything but coconut extract and water (no gums). Check with your rabbi whether these products would be acceptable without special Passover certification.

ADVANCE PREP: Both macarons and macaroons are great make-ahead desserts.

Well-wrapped, they are good keepers: A few days at room temperature, a week or more in the refrigerator, and one to three months frozen.

CAKES:

You can also use macaroon batter to prepare very good kosher-for-Passover cakes. To make an upside-down fruit torte, I bake a topping of almondFind more and-coconut macaroon batter over a macaro(o)n layer of caramelized apples (see recipe recipes at at jwi.org/macaroons). To prevent the jwi.org/macaroons crust from becoming soggy from the moisture of the fruit, invert the torte just before serving it.

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Chocolate-Almond Macaroons from Dan Cohen

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Excerpted with permission from The Macaroon Bible by Dan Cohen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013).

Photo by Alice Gao for The Macaroon Bible, courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F with a rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

2. In an extra-large bowl, measure out 10½ ounces by weight of the condensed milk. If you don’t have a scale, use approximately 8 ounces (1 cup) by liquid measure. Add the vanilla and incorporate with a rubber spatula. Add the coconut and combine until thoroughly mixed.

These scrumptious confections are so reminiscent of Almond Joy candy bars that Danny Cohen introduces them with a paraphrase of the old jingle for the chocolates (“there are times when you feel like a nut…").

Cook's Note: To toast the almonds, place them in a single layer on a baking sheet and place into a preheated 350°F oven for 25 minutes or until the almonds take on deeper coloring and become fragrant, giving them a shake and stir halfway through. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Makes 24 two-inch macaroons Ingredients • One 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract • One 14-ounce bag sweetened shredded coconut • 2 large egg whites • ¼ teaspoon kosher salt • 24 whole almonds, plus ⅓ cup almonds, toasted (see note) and coarsely chopped • 4 ounces chocolate of your choice, coarsely chopped into pieces the size of a quarter

3. Add the egg whites and salt to the bowl of a stand mixer (or small bowl if you’re using a hand beater) and whip on medium-high until very stiff peaks form, 2½ to 3 minutes.

4. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture.

After it’s combined, push the mixture into one big blob to make it easier for you to portion out the macaroons.

5. Dip 2 spoons into a small bowl of water, shake them off, form the mixture into balls approximately 1½ inches in diameter, and place them on the baking sheet about 1 inch apart. (You can also form them by hand, but be sure to wet your fingers frequently.)

6. When you’ve got the macaroons all out on the sheet, gently press a whole almond into the top of each macaroon. Place the sheet into the oven to bake for 20 to 25 minutes. After about 22 minutes, start checking for coloring. Look for an even, light golden color and for the undersides to be nicely tanned. The almonds will be a little bit darker but they should not be burnt.

7. Remove from the oven and let the sheet rest on a cooling rack, leaving the macaroons on the sheet until they’re cool enough for you to pull off (about 2 minutes depending on how sensitive your fingers are). Transfer the macaroons to the cooling rack to let cool completely.

8. When the macaroons are cool, place the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir thoroughly, then continue to microwave in 20-second increments until all the chocolate is melted and the chocolate feels quite warm (but not hot) when you touch it to your lip. (If you don't have a microwave, melt chocolate in a double boiler.) Then spoon or drizzle the chocolate on top of each of the macaroons. Alternatively, you can dip the tops or the sides of each macaroon in chocolate. Or the bottoms.

Or stick a skewer into each macaroon and completely cloak it. Knock yourself out. Sprinkle with the chopped almonds.

9. Place back on the cooling sheet and wait for the chocolate to set, or place the macaroons in the fridge for 15 to 30 minutes to greatly speed up the process.

10. The macaroons will keep uncovered for 3 to 5 days, for about 3 weeks in an airtight container in the fridge, and for a few months if stored in an airtight container in the freezer.

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Coffee-Flavored French Macarons (and variations)

Makes about 8 servings Ingredients • 55 grams (weigh for best results) finely ground almonds (about ½ cup) • 55 grams (weigh for best results) finely ground hazelnuts (about ½ cup) • 200 grams (weigh for best results) kosher-for- Passover confectioner's sugar (about 1 ⅔ cups) • 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder • 3 large egg whites, at room temperature • pinch of salt • 35 grams (weigh for best results) granulated white sugar (about 2 ½ tablespoons) • 1 teaspoon kosher-for-Passover vanilla extract • Your choice of filling – some suggestions: kosherfor-Passover chocolate spread; prune jam (lekvar) spiked, perhaps, with cinnamon; sour cherry preserves (purée until smooth); date syrup (silan), cooked down a bit if too thin

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from Jayne Cohen

Instructions for making French macarons are notoriously fussy. And for good reason: such beauty comes at a price.

To get that gorgeous look requires a lot of tedious work, including accurately weighing out the ingredients on a kitchen scale and sifting the nuts and confectioner's sugar. This is one of those recipes that really should be followed to the letter. Your macaron will probably turn out quite tasty even if you are not as precise as instructed, but most likely, it won't be as pretty. So the choice is yours.

Cook's Note – Here are some other flavoring and filling ideas: Apricot-Rosemary Macarons: for shell, use all almonds, eliminate coffee and substitute 1 tablespoon rosemary, grinding as directed, and substitute almond extract for vanilla; for filling, combine apricot jam with a little finely crushed pistachios, adding a bit of lemon juice if jam is too sweet.

Lavender-Berry Macarons: for shell, substitute 1 tablespoon dried lavender for coffee powder, use all almonds, and grind as directed; for filling, strawberry or raspberry jam flavored with a bit of rosewater or, for a tarter flavor, with fresh passion fruit juice. Or mix a smidgen of pomegranate molasses into jam for a tangier taste.

Dairy Fillings: try ganache (especially chocolate), flavored buttercream, salted caramel or dulce de leche, mascarpone flavored with raspberries, lemon or passion fruit curd, or even flavored freshly whipped cream.

1. Line two baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper.

2. Combine the ground almonds and hazelnuts, confectioner's sugar, and espresso powder in a food processor and pulse until powdery. Sift the ingredients through a sieve into a large bowl. If necessary, regrind ingredients remaining in the sieve until almost all are fine enough to pass through. (If there is still a small amount remaining that can't be sieved, discard it.)

3. In another large bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt on low speed until foamy. Increase speed and gradually beat in the granulated sugar, continuing until whites form medium peaks (stop before you reach the stiff peak stage). Whisk in vanilla.

4. Fold the nut mixture, one-third at a time, into the egg whites, working gently but quickly to incorporate them. When you're finished, the batter should flow slowly from a spatula, neither too runny nor too thick. This consistency has been compared by some cooks to molten lava. To test a sample, pipe out a small amount. It should not hold a peak; it should flatten out soon after piping. If not, gently fold the batter some more.

5. Spoon the batter into a pastry bag fitted with a plain round tip. Pipe the batter into circles about 1½ inches in diameter onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving room between each one. Rap the baking sheets firmly against the counter a few times to eliminate air pockets and smooth out the tops.

6. Let rest at room temperature until a skin forms on top. They should feel dry to the touch, no longer sticky. This may take 45 to 60 minutes, depending on the humidity of your kitchen.

7. Preheat oven to 300°F. 8. Bake for about 15 to 25 minutes, until macarons are set and lightly crisp, but not browned, reversing position of the pans halfway through. Exact time will vary according to your oven.

9. Transfer to racks to cool for about 30 minutes. When completely cooled, spread a thin layer of filling over the flat side (bottom half) of macaron, top with another macaron, flat side down, and twist slightly to secure. Continue making macaron sandwiches with remaining shells and filling.

10. Let the filled macarons stand at room temperature for at least 2 hours to soften before serving. Or store wrapped in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 days. Macarons can also be frozen for up to 1 month. Bring to room temperature before serving.

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Hazelnut-Almond Macaroons from Faye Levy

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Faye Levy’s new adaptation of a recipe from her book, Healthy Cooking for the Jewish Home (William Morrow, 2008).

Faye’s addition of roasted hazelnuts lends a rich butteriness to almond macaroons. For extra-special flavor, she blanches the almonds, toasts the hazelnuts, and grinds both nuts herself, instead of buying packaged pre-ground almonds and hazelnuts.

And to make it easier to remove the macaroons from the paper and keep them moist, she writes, “use this trick we learned at La Varenne cooking school in Paris: Bake them on a parchment-lined baking sheet and pour a little water under the paper before removing them from the sheet.”

Makes about 30 macaroons Ingredients • 1 ¼ cups blanched almonds (either whole or slivered) • 1 cup hazelnuts • 1 ½ cups sugar • 3 large egg whites

1. Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Toast hazelnuts on a baking sheet, shaking the sheet once or twice, about 8 minutes or until their skins begin to split. Transfer to a strainer.

2. While nuts are hot, remove most of skins by rubbing nuts energetically with a towel against strainer. Cool nuts completely. Leave oven on.

3. Move rack to upper third of oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or waxed paper; grease paper lightly with margarine.

4. Grind almonds and hazelnuts with 4 tablespoons sugar in food processor until mixture forms fine, even crumbs. Add egg whites and vanilla sugar or extract and process until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add remaining sugar in two additions and process about 10 seconds after each or until smooth.

5. With moistened hands, roll about 1 tablespoon of mixture between your palms to a smooth ball. Put on prepared baking sheet. Continue shaping macaroons, spacing them 1 inch apart.

6. Press each macaroon to flatten it slightly so it is about ½ inch high. Brush entire surface of each macaroon with water. If both baking sheets don’t fit on rack, bake them one at a time. Bake macaroons until very lightly but evenly browned, 18 to 20 minutes; centers should still be soft. Remove from oven.

7. Lift one end of paper and pour about 2 tablespoons water under it, onto baking sheet; water will boil on contact with hot baking sheet. Lift other end of paper and pour about 2 tablespoons water under it. When water stops boiling, remove macaroons carefully from paper. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Keep them in airtight containers.

• 1 packet or 1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar or 1 ½ teaspoons kosher-forPassover vanilla extract

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who needs

CHOMETZ? Paula Shoyer’s gorgeous new cookbook will make you wish every day was Passover

BY MEREDITH JACOBS

aula Shoyer has built her career pebble by pebble.

“You often hear people say they built their business brick by brick,” she said over coffee near her Chevy Chase, Md. home. “But really, there are pebbles thrown in. You may have a brick here and a brick there, and then a handful of pebbles. And, then, one day, you realize you’re standing on a mountain of bricks and pebbles and look around and think ‘How did I get here?’ And you realize that all those bricks and pebbles, all those steps – big and small – got me here.”

For the lawyer who took pastry classes at the Ritz Escoffier in Paris “just for fun” (she graduated from the esteemed program in 1996), her new cookbook The New Passover Menu (Sterling), is yet another brick in the amazing career she’s building. Her third book, Menu is the first to go beyond kosher desserts and includes the full gamut of Passover foods – from Seder-worthy entrees to kosher for Passover waffles.

Shoyer is currently promoting the book and teaching cooking classes from Israel to Brooklyn, and she admits that never in her “wildest dreams” did she imagine one day being flown to Hong Kong to teach cooking to its Jewish community.

But it wasn’t a grand plan that got her where she is today. “You just have to keep your eyes open,” she advises. “Because you don’t know what steps will take you in the right direction.”

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Which is how this latest book came to be. Shoyer was in San Diego promoting her previous book, The Holiday Kosher Baker, when her literary agent called to tell her that Williams Sonoma and Crate & Barrel thought there was a need for a great Passover cookbook.

cilantro, brisket osso bucco, linzer tart with nut crust, and an innovative Seder plate salad made with lamb, hard boiled eggs, parsley leaves, and a horseradish dressing.

She credits Diane Ash, her assistant, for making it all possible. “She’s in my house right now,” Shoyer says, “testing out a new gluten-free recipe.” Shoyer also has helpers all over the world testing her recipes, making certain they work with different water, different ovens, and different climates.

She also credits her children, for providing inspiration – from necessity. During Passover, her kids are on vacation from school, which means she’s making breakfast throughout the day. “I feel like a short order cook,” she jokes. So her gluten-free waffles were born. Of course, she had to make certain to create a kosher for Passover version of her favorite recipe, the triple-chocolate biscotti – perfect for Seder dessert or any time with a cup of coffee.

The new book identifies what can easily be made in advance (a must, she says, when hosting a Seder), as well as a list of equipment, because the average home cook may not have the same arsenal of cooking equipment for Passover that she would for other times of the year.

With four children (a daughter, 20, and three sons, one 18 and 15-year-old twins), one wonders how Shoyer has time to feed her family let alone develop enough recipes to fill three cookbooks.

Shoyer explains that she’s creating recipes every day. “Every time I cook something for my family I look in the fridge and think ‘What do I have?’” The only difference when she’s writing a book is she has to measure and record.

Her goal is to take traditional recipes that guests will recognize, but change them up just enough so that they’ll say “Oh, what’s that?” Among her creations: matzoh balls flavored with ginger and

Currently on tour for The New Passover Menu, Shoyer also consults with various restaurants and bakeries to help them create delicious pareve desserts. And, she’s in talks to produce her own line of frozen chocolate babkas.

“The journey has been fun, but it’s hard,” she shares. “I’m still the mom of four kids. But it’s important for me to model to them that you can take a kernel of an idea and – step by step – build something great.”

Meredith Jacobs is vice president of communications for JWI and author of Modern Jewish Mom's Guide to Shabbat (Harper Paperbacks).

SEARED T U N A with OLIVES & CA P E R S "My family consumes a lot of sushi, so everyone is thrilled when I have seared tuna on the menu at our house," Shoyer writes.

"The olive and caper relish has strong flavors, so I often serve it on the side." She adds that "several companies certify capers for Passover, but if you cannot find them, substitute green olives."

Makes 4 to 6 servings Ingredients • 4 tuna steaks (6 ounces/170g each) • ½ teaspoon dried basil • ½ teaspoon dried thyme • Black pepper • 3 tablespoons (45ml) extra virgin olive oil • 3 tablespoons chopped red onion, cut into • ¼-inch (6-mm) pieces • 4 cloves garlic, chopped into ¼-inch (6-mm) pieces • 3 tablespoons capers, drained, or green olives, cut into ¼-inch (6mm) pieces • ⅓ cup (45g) green or black olives (or a combination), cut into long slivers • ½ teaspoon sugar

1. SPRINKLE both sides of the tuna steaks with the basil, thyme, and pepper to taste. Heat a large frying pan over high heat (do not add any oil).

When the pan is hot, add the tuna steaks and cook for 1 to 1 ½ minutes on each side, just long enough to sear the outside. Leave the center raw, unless you prefer tuna cooked all the way through.

2. REMOVE the tuna steaks to a plate. Reduce the heat to medium and add the oil. Add the red onion and garlic and cook for 2 minutes, stirring often. Add the capers, olives, sugar, and pepper to taste and cook for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat.

3. PLACE the tuna steaks on a cutting board and slice into 1/3- to 1/2-inchthick (8- to 12-mm) slices. Place the slices on a platter and sprinkle the caper and olive mixture on top, or serve it alongside in a small bowl.

Reprinted with permission from New Passover Menu © 2015 by Paula Shoyer, Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. Photography by Michael Bennett Kress

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Delicious Diaspora

Janna Gur is passionate about preserving and popularizing food treasures from Israel’s diverse immigrant cultures

BY JAYNE COHEN

Find more recipes at jwi.org/jannagur

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nless your bubbe was Lauren Bacall or your oma Hedy Lamarr, “sexy” is not a word you probably associate with Jewish grandmothers. But a glance through Janna Gur’s new book, Jewish Soul Food: From Minsk to Marrakesh (Schocken), may change your mind. Her recipes – drawn from the cuisines of the saftas (Israeli grandmas) from diverse Diaspora communities and styled with nana-type table linens, flowered china, and old-fashioned white metal pots – look hotter than any glossy cooking mag food porn.

Which is exactly the point.

Because Gur’s aim is to send you rushing into the kitchen to make a rice pilaf from Iran so alive with green herbs it smells “like a springtime meadow.” Or the luscious chicken tagine with artichoke hearts that Moroccan Jews serve on Passover...a Hungarian stuffed cabbage enlivened with black pepper and simmered in a paprika-scented sauerkraut sauce...or simple albondigas, tender little meatballs baked in a subtly smoky mixture of roasted eggplants and charred red peppers. And the recipes of her own grandmothers emit a siren song as well. From Grandma Rosa, with roots in Romania, comes Blue Ones with Red Ones, a roasted eggplant salad with a unique texture derived by grating some tomatoes and onions and chopping the rest.

“The only way to really preserve a culinary culture, to keep it alive,” – Gur writes, “is to cook the food and make people want to eat it.” Some of the recipes in the book come from the most ancient Jewish communities, such as Urfa, in Turkey, believed to be Abraham’s birthplace. So, she continues, “it was important for me to show that these dishes feel perfectly at home

in a modern kitchen.” She makes her point with an array of stunning salads, meatless mains, glamorous options for special occasions, and a Shabbat chapter that “might lead you to rethink your weekend menu” in Israeli rhythms.

potatoes, an aunt is fluffing rice for her Iraqi sweet-and-sour beef, a Polish friend poaches gefilte fish delicate with ground almonds, and your Ethiopian father-in-law is mixing up a batch of fiery z’hug cilantro paste – all for tonight’s Seder.

Back in 2008 – long before Israeli ex-pat restaurateurs like Yotam Ottolenghi, Einat Admony, and Michael Solomonov were global bold-face names – Gur, in The Book of New Israeli Food, told the world the story of the dazzling melting pot food scene that had sprung up out of the former culinary desert, enticing tourists to the new foodie destination. And along the way, she became Israel’s first culinary ambassador: by giving food talks for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she has helped change conversation about Israel from war and conflict to discussions of creativity and pride.

But it’s a story that begins decades ago, when many Zionist immigrants rejected the trappings of exile (galut) – including foods, customs, even the Yiddish language – in their zeal to forge a new united nation from scores of diverse Diaspora communities. Instead of a source of comfort, many traditional ethnic foods became a cause for embarrassment: the chopped liver sandwich a Ukrainian mother put in a child’s lunch bag, the Iraqi flatbread another family ate at home instead of the “regular” kind like everybody else.

Her newest food story – about the glittering food treasures of a hundred immigrant groups returned home from the Diaspora – is more poignant.

It’s what it feels like to be an Israeli.

It’s what it means to live in a country where your Libyan upstairs neighbor is frying “sandwiches” of meat-stuffed

The pendulum swung “toward the end of millennium,” Gur writes. “As the ethos of the melting pot gave way to more inclusive approaches to everything cultural, the foods of Jewish communities became again a source of pride and inspiration” – for both restaurant and home chefs. Even oldworld Ashkenazi foods finally took on new life: inspired by the recent hip status conferred on these dishes in North America, some Israeli chefs now feature herring and chopped liver on their bar menus (after all, their saltiness does complement drinks quite well).

But there is drama to this story as well.

For without new generations who will cook these foods, these grandmother cuisines will disappear when the grandmothers are gone. Some are already on the verge of extinction. As Gur explained to me in an interview at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, many of these homelands no longer even exist for Jews. An Italian can go back to her country to research her family’s culinary traditions, but a Jew JW Magazine | jwmag.org

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The Day After Seder Salad Hadassah doesn’t serve chicken and vegetables with the soup, but saves them for lunch on the first day of the Passover week: Separate the chicken meat from the bones while it is still warm (it is easier that way) and shred it into small pieces.

Chop the cooked carrot (from the soup).

Add freshly chopped onions and capers and dress with mayonnaise (preferably homemade) seasoned with mustard [to avoid kitnyot, substitute horseradish instead] and minced garlic.

whose parents were expelled from Kurdistan? She may never be able to return to her roots.

Gur traces her “aha” moment to a Canadian food journalist’s remark at a dinner in a trendy restaurant serving the kind of nouveau Israeli food she championed in her first book. “But what about the memories?” he asked. “As Israelis, you have a duty to preserve Jewish culture, and food is such an important part of it!”

In Israel, some of these Diaspora dishes are finding their way into new homes. Others may already be part of the country’s culinary mainstream, like Tunisian Shakshuka, eggs poached in a spicy fresh tomato sauce, and Kubaneh, a slow-baked Shabbat bread from Yemen that is laced with butter. But Gur is a realist, recognizing that given the wealth of Jewish dishes, “most of it will eventually be relegated to the folkloristic fringes of the culinary scene.”

But not all.

Gazing backward to create a future, Gur embarks here on a new food journey: to preserve some of the very best exemplars of the bubbe cuisines, using Israel as a living laboratory to help her select the recipes.

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And she is well-suited to the task: a passionate, adventurous eater who can appreciate beef tongue, tangy with apricots, prunes, and raisins, just as much as basbousa, a juicy cake comprising semolina, coconut, and ground pistachios.

But even an omnivore has limits – and I’m not talking about p’tcha (Ashkenazi cold calf ’s foot in garlic jelly). When I asked her if there were any Jewish hall-offamers that she couldn’t bear to include, she laughed. “You found me out!” Although she grew up in Riga, Latvia, in the former Soviet Union, where it is a staple, you won’t find kasha recipes in any form. “I really can’t bear it,” she confessed.

But there was one dish from her childhood she absolutely had to include: Grandma Vera’s apple kuchen. The scent of cinnamon and warm apples was such a powerful lure for young Janna that she would climb on a chair to steal pieces of the cake, hidden atop a cupboard. Then she’d endure the big family scolding for being selfish.

It wasn’t until years later that her dad revealed the truth: he’d been sneaking bites of apple kuchen at the same time.

On Passovers, Romanian-born Hadassah Kavel celebrates her 40-year marriage to Gerard, an Algerian Jew, with this verdant soup. Brimming with the spring vegetables and aromatics that are a hallmark of soups at North African Seders, the soup is served with matzoh balls from Hadassah’s own culinary legacy – which she makes extra-flavorful with sweet fried onions and fresh herbs.

Note: If your Passover tradition excludes kitnyot (legumes, seeds, etc.), feel free to substitute sliced asparagus, artichokes, or another spring vegetable of your choice for the fava beans and peas and omit the cardamom pods.

1. Fill a large pot (about 8 quarts) threequarters full with boiling water. Add the chicken pieces and turkey neck and boil for 5 minutes. Drain, save the meat, and wash the pot.

2. Return the meat to the pot and add fresh cold water so that it reaches three-quarters of its volume. Put the cardamom, bay leaves, and allspice in a piece of cloth and tie in a bundle. Add to the pot. Add the sage, onions, carrots, celery root, fennel, and cabbage and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 1 hour. Remove from the heat and cool slightly.

3. Drain the liquid through a fine sieve and pour the broth back into the pot. Save the chicken and cooked vegetables in separate containers. Up to this point, the soup can be made ahead and refrigerated for up to 3 days.

4. When ready to serve, bring the broth to a boil. Tie the dill, cilantro, parsley, and celery in a bundle and add to the broth. Add the fava beans and peas [or green vegetables of your choice]. Return to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove and discard the herbs. Serve with pieces of matzoh or with matzoh balls.

Excerpted from JEWISH SOUL FOOD by Janna Gur. Copyright © 2014 by Janna Gur, by permission of Schocken Books, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Passover Green Chicken Soup (Algerian)

Makes 10 to 12 servings Ingredients • 1 whole chicken (3 pounds), separated into 8 pieces • 1 turkey neck, cut into a few chunks • 3 cardamom pods (see note) • 3 bay leaves

• 1 celery root (celeriac), quartered

• 1 small bunch fresh parsley

• 10 allspice berries

• 1 fennel bulb (only the outer leaves)

• 3 to 4 celery stalks, with leaves

• 2 large fresh sage leaves

• 1 cabbage stalk (the hard part without the leaves)

• ¾ cup peeled fava beans, fresh or frozen (see note)

• 1 small bunch fresh dill

• ½ cup garden peas, fresh or frozen (see note)

• 5 small onions • 4 to 5 carrots, sliced into 1-inch coins

• 1 small bunch fresh cilantro

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Excerpted from JEWISH SOUL FOOD by Janna Gur. Copyright Š 2014 by Janna Gur, by permission of Schocken Books, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Orange and Black Olives Salad (Moroccan)

“When tangy-sweet oranges meet the sharp saltiness of olives, something magical happens,” Janna Gur writes. This salad is from the Moroccan meze table.

Serves 6 Ingredients • 2 ounces (50 g) black oil-cured olives, pitted and halved • 4 to 5 oranges, peeled, quartered, and coarsely sliced • 1 tablespoon harissa (see below or store-bought) • 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro leaves,chopped • ½ teaspoon ground cumin • ⅓ cup fresh lemon juice • 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive • 3-4 garlic cloves, chopped Mix the olives, oranges, harissa, cilantro, cumin, lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic and let stand for at least 3 hours to blend the flavors. Serve at room temperature. The salad will keep for 2 days in the fridge.

Harissa (North African) “What I like about harissa, besides the taste of dried red peppers, is the fact that it is not overly spicy, so you can use it quite liberally and even serve it on the table as a condiment,” Janna Gur writes.

Makes 2 cups Ingredients • 1 pound (½ kg) dried sweet red chile peppers

• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil

• 2 to 3 dried hot red chile peppers

• 1 tablespoon ground cumin

• 10 garlic cloves

• Juice of 2 lemons

• 1 tablespoon salt

1. Grind the dried chiles and the garlic in a mortar and pestle or in a meat grinder.

A blender may be used as well, but it will produce a more liquid harissa. Transfer to a bowl.

2. Stir in the olive oil, salt, cumin and lemon juice. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

It will last a long time in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator.

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Chicken Tagine with Artichoke Hearts (Moroccan)

Makes 2 cups Ingredients • ⅓ cup olive oil • 10 to 12 chicken thighs and/or drumsticks • 4 large onions, chopped • 1 large bunch fresh parsley or cilantro, chopped • 12 to 14 artichoke hearts, thickly sliced (if using frozen, thaw them first) • 3 pickled (Moroccan) lemons, chopped or sliced (make yourself or available at gourmet stores and Middle Eastern groceries) • 2 cups cooked chickpeas (or canned or frozen) [See note] • 1 teaspoon ground coriander • ¼ teaspoon ground cumin • Dash of nutmeg (preferably freshly grated) • ½ teaspoon ground turmeric • Salt and freshly ground black pepper • 1 tablespoon sweet paprika

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“The term “tagine” refers to a family of North African braises as well as to the pot in which they are cooked – an earthenware casserole with a wide bottom and a conical lid that creates a unique steaming effect,” Gur writes. “If you don’t own a tagine, any heavy-bottomed casserole or a Dutch oven will do nicely.” She says that using frozen artichokes is fine, but strongly advises against skipping the spices, "which transform this easy-to-make chicken pot roast into an exotically flavored delicacy.”

Note: Ashkenazi Jews who don’t eat legumes on Passover may wish to substitute small cubes of root vegetables for the chickpeas.

1. Heat half of the olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and brown for 3 to 4 minutes on each side. Add ⅓ cup water, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the chicken is almost done.

2. Heat the remaining oil in a tagine or in a large heavy-bottomed casserole.

3. Add the onions and parsley and sauté until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes.

4. Add the artichokes and pickled lemons and sauté for 1 more minute.

5. Add the chicken, chickpeas, coriander, cumin, nutmeg, turmeric, salt, pepper, and paprika.

6. Pour in ⅓ cup boiling water. Reduce the heat to the minimum, cover, and simmer for 1 hour, gently stirring or shaking the pot occasionally. If the dish dries out (it shouldn’t because the vegetables will release enough liquid), add a little bit of boiling water. After an hour or so the tagine is ready, but if you have time, let it simmer gently for another hour or even more. The longer you cook it, the better the taste, and the more succulent the chicken will be.

7. Serve over couscous [or if using for Passover, serve over quinoa or kosher for Passover couscous].

Excerpted from JEWISH SOUL FOOD by Janna Gur. Copyright © 2014 by Janna Gur, by permission of Schocken Books, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

FLOWERS SHOULD BE GIVEN WITH LOVE. Every Mother's Day card you send through JWI helps us deliver bouquets and gift baskets to 200 battered women's shelters on Mother's Day. Donate by May 1st at jwi.org/mothersday or 800 343 2823.

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Fewer and fewer campus rapes are being swept under the rug – or beneath the quad – thanks to brave young women and prevention programs that work

BY ELICIA BROWN

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ACT n the first evening of her sophomore year at the University of Michigan, Rachel* was out with a group of college friends, whom she’d been so excited to see after a summer away. The group was drinking at a party and although Rachel does not remember the gathering, her friends say a boy was flirting with her. Rachel had a serious boyfriend at the time, who she had been dating for three years and who her friends had all met. Her friends left. She blacked out. When she came to, she was in the bed of a boy she didn’t know, who was insisting that Rachel “take Plan B,” the morning after pill which reduces the chance of pregnancy after unprotected sex. He told her he had used a condom but added, `I don’t like to risk it,’ as if he’d done this a thousand times.”

A new phase of Rachel’s life had begun.

She distanced herself from the circle of friends she’d cultivated her freshman year. She felt isolated on the campus she’d loved so much the year before. She didn’t know who to talk to, where to turn. Her three-year relationship with her boyfriend began to unravel. “Worst of all,” she says in a speech she recently shared with an audience at the campus Hillel, “I blamed myself. I felt ashamed and damaged.”

If it had been a generation ago or even a decade ago, Rachel may very well have eventually and quietly accepted the “date rape” as an unfortunate event of her youth and moved on with her life. Rachel’s assault, however, occurred during a watershed moment in the long history of sexual assault on college campuses. Increasingly, the issue of rape on campuses is not being swept under the rug – or beneath the quad.

Like a growing cohort of young survivors, Rachel is taking action. She’s been working as an ambassador to Michigan, disseminating information on behalf of JWI about its work in preventing violence against women on college campuses. Finally, she applied for and received a grant to bring a JWI program, “Safe Smart Dating” to her campus. The two-hour workshop focuses on awareness and prevention.

She’s not ashamed to speak publicly about her experience, and is passionate about educating others in language used around sexual assault. Too easily and too often, stories that involve alcohol, like her own, can come off as victim blaming. As Rachel

explains, "Alcohol is an excuse for and a tool to perpetrate violent behavior; it is never a justification for the perpetrator's actions. That is not to say that the experience taught me nothing about binge drinking. On the contrary, because of the horror of that night, I no longer take shots or drink beyond my limits and I have never again blacked out. It is definitely important for young people (both men and women) to learn how to drink responsibly; however, it is more important for young people (both men and women) to learn that violence against one another is not only morally wrong and unacceptable, but punishable by law."

In a sense, Rachel could be considered to be part of a national movement of young activists. These women – and a few men – want to do more than “Take Back the Night” as college women did when they marched through dark campuses in the 1980s and ‘90s in a quest to highlight security flaws, but to also change the whole dynamics of how rape allegations are handled, how survivors are treated, and how preventative education is offered.

“Incredible, brave women have been coming forward in the past five years and putting a compelling face on the problem,” says Sharyn J. Potter, an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire and co-director of Prevention Innovations, a research center dedicated to implementing programs that will end violence against women.

“These are our daughters, our neighbors.”

This wave of activism includes women like Emma Sulkowicz, the Columbia senior who is both Asian and Jewish, and has gained national attention by carrying a mattress throughout her campus on which she says she was raped. It also includes women like Alexandra Brodsky, an early and

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notable survivor in this scene, who filed a suit against Yale along with 15 others after a rape her freshman year, 2009.

Brodsky, who told the Yale Daily News that her early sense of social justice was sparked in her synagogue, founded “Know Your IX” in 2013.

For Rachel, no doubt, these women have helped pave a path forward. But there’s also an organization that she directly credits for her education on the laws surrounding assault, and her journey to healing: JWI.

PIONEERING ROLE JWI, where Rachel worked as a summer intern in 2014, has one of the most, if not the most, well-developed approaches in the Jewish world to combatting sexual violence on college campuses.

Initiatives range from the 2-hour workshop, which Rachel is eager to bring to Michigan, to assault prevention campaigns tailored specifically to the needs of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, funded by a grant from the

Chicago Jewish Women’s Foundation. There’s also an awareness campaign designed for 10 campuses across the country, funded by a Jewish Social Matching Grant. In addition, in an effort to recruit and inform men, on March 27, JWI will hold a rally day on Capitol Hill – "Brother to Brother" – that is expected to gather 150 high school boys from the BBYO youth movement and young adult leaders from the fraternity ZBT. For JWI, even if the arena is a new one, the battle is not.

The organization has been working on reducing domestic violence in the Jewish community since the late 1990s, so “it’s natural that we began to look at the issue of sexual violence on college campuses as part of a continuum,” says Lori Weinstein, JWI CEO/executive director.

The workshop, “Safe Smart Dating,” was piloted at three schools in the fall of 2013, and is expected travel to 10 to 15 more campuses by the end of this school year. The program, created in partnership with SDT sorority and ZBT fraternity, features a lecture presentation, videos of survivors, and facilitated table conversations. Participants praise its focus on Greek life, which has been the scene of many reported rapes.

Clockwise from top left: JWI's Dana Fleitman delivers the Safe Smart Dating program at George Washington University; Safe Smart Dating at University of Maryland; University of Denver; Emory University; American University.

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“IF SOMEONE DRINKS, THE PUNISHMENT SHOULD BE A HANGOVER, NOT SEXUAL ASSAULT." It is already making a difference. A texting poll at the program’s start, for example, indicates the number of survivors in every room. “It’s happening more than you think,” said Lindsay Baker, a senior at Emory University in Atlanta.

Among the key tools used in JWI’s workshop: 1) engaging men as allies, 2) peer to peer education, and 3) educating college students on the meaning of consent to sex.

MALE ADVOCATES Stephen Stanis, a senior at University of Denver, can’t imagine a one-sided conversation about sexual violence. After all, he says, “It takes two to tango.” Also, “It shouldn’t be a fight that women do alone.”

Stanis, who is a vice president of ZBT, recently participated in JWI’s workshop, which is coed by design. He says a lot of women who attended the workshop told him they were impressed that the guys seemed to understand the gravity and complexity of the issues. As Stanis says, “Both halves need to be in on the conversation.”

At 16, Jules Jacobs may be one of the youngest men to join the mission. Jacobs, who is a sophomore at Wootton High School in Rockville, Md., was the one who first suggested that BBYO lobby with JWI. “We need to know how to be responsible men in a college setting,” said Jules, who is founder and president of his chapter, Sammy Davis, Jr. AZA in the D.C. Council.

Already, Jules understands the proper protocol of bystanders. If he’s at a party and spots a guy flirting aggressively with a girl who has consumed alcohol, he’ll approach the girl and say, “Hey, let’s get you home.”

Jules Jacobs at AZA/BBG's 2015 International Conference in February

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BOLD BYSTANDERS Jules has implicitly adopted the code of bystander intervention, or acting as “the upstander,” in the jargon of Laurel Ruza, a senior at University of Michigan, who interned at JWI’s office in the summer of 2012. “It’s a role that friends have taken on for me,” Ruza explains,

“Everyone agreed [that sobriety] should be a standard but it’s very hard to do. Alcohol is just everywhere in college,” says Allie Levin, a junior at University of Maryland, who served as a group leader in the Safe Smart Dating workshop on her campus.

“If someone drinks, the punishment should be a hangover, not sexual assault,”says Fleitman. One of the strengths of the workshop, she believes, is that it provides a safe space for meaningful conversations on the real complexities of consent and alcohol.

For example, “If there’s a guy talking to me at the bar, my friends will be mouthing 'Are you O.K.?’ Or they might say, 'Oh Laurel, will you go the bathroom with me?’” A more assertive friend might inform the guy: “`Hey, you need to back off. That’s not cool.’”

The Safe Smart Dating workshop teaches this role. A participant in the workshop, who requested anonymity, says she recently spotted a friend in trouble at a frat party. The friend was dancing with a guy who was drinking, and was also “pushing the friend against the wall.” The young woman sprang into action, blockading the guy with her body, suggesting to her friend it was time to leave.

CULTURAL SHIFT

Public awareness posters from JWI's Safe Smart Dating program

YES MEANS YES! Perhaps one of the more complex issues regarding intimacy among college students relates to consent.

“People don’t talk about consent in sex ed. Why isn’t that day one? It doesn’t surprise me that college students don’t know how to navigate this space,” says Dana Fleitman, the JWI program manager who designed the Safe Smart Dating workshop.

Today’s activists reject the old catch phrase, “No means no.” Today, “yes means yes,” and Fleitman adds another level: Yes should mean “an enthusiastic yes.”

Fleitman tells college audiences in the workshop, “If someone’s body is tensing, if someone is not kissing you back, if someone is putting clothes back on, if someone is drunk and incapacitated, that’s not what enthusiasm looks like.”

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The nuances over consent notwithstanding, the conversation has started in earnest. These days it’s hard to miss the uproar over rape culture on college campuses. The clamor last December, which focused on the questionable journalistic practices used in Rolling Stone magazine’s article on a gang rape at University of Virginia, marked only the most recent in a series of high profile events; and in the words of Weinstein, “the train is moving too fast to be permanently derailed by something like that.”

Americans have been rattled by the shocking and oft-cited statistic – as many as one in five women will be a victim of sexual violence during her college years. This statistic, provided

by The Campus Sexual Assault Study of 2007, was conducted for the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice, and based on data collected from two large universities. In January of 2014, President Barack Obama publicized the statistic further when he announced a task force to protect students from sexual assault. Since last year, some 85 colleges have been under federal investigation for sexual misconduct.

It is in this kind of environment that last September, Dana Kukin, a Barnard senior who identifies as an Orthodox Jew, found herself standing amid a crowd of students carrying

dorm mattresses to symbolize the burden of sexual assaults. Spontaneously, Kukin announced that she too is a survivor of rape. She’d shared her story before but in a more intimate setting.

This year, though, rape “is one of the most talked about topics on campus,” she says. “I think some of the girls who organized the rally were surprised by how many people shared their stories and opinions.”

“It’s an exciting time to be involved,” says John Foubert, a professor at Oklahoma State University, who has studied sexual assault for more than 20 years.

For years, he says, “we were out there in the wilderness screaming at the sand.

Now people are definitely listening.”

Some complain of a backlash. Still, there’s no doubt that a bright spotlight finally shines upon the decades-old issue of sexual violence on college campuses, where the potent mix of alcohol and a hookup culture can brew up disastrous consequences. We don’t yet know the outcome of these conversations, investigations and legislation.

We do know though that JWI's work is playing a part in the solution. As Weinstein says, “This can only be fixed by transforming the culture, by changing the culture of every man, woman, campus officer and athlete.”

Leora Tanenbaum’s new book challenges us to discard a word that damages too many women.

BY ARI EISEN As a young woman, college student, feminist and survivor of sexual assault, I have witnessed how the use of language like the word “slut” has had devastating impacts on my friends and on me personally. I have seen sexual objectification lead to self-destructive eating disorders, low-self-esteem, dating abuse and sexual assault.

That’s why I Am Not a Slut: Slut Shaming in the Age of the Internet, by Leora Tanenbaum, is a vital read for women and girls of all ages.

The author’s central argument is that the widespread use of the word “slut” perpetuates violence against women equally when it's used as an attack, a shaming mechanism, a joke, a colloquial term, or a tool of empowerment. Her interviews with girls and women, while sometimes repetitive, demonstrate the damaging influence of such derogatory language on young females by diminishing them and suggesting that their value lies in their sexual appeal alone.

Tanenbaum delves into the nuances of slut, exploring its usage both as a term to describe a sexy, empowered woman, and to describe a promiscuous woman. It is precisely this inability to detach negative meaning from the word that makes it disempowering.

For Tanenbaum, sexual empowerment can only be achieved in a context of sexual equality, and sexual equality can only be realized in a world without slut.

This point cannot be overstated; and yet, an unfortunate contradiction emerges in Tanenbaum’s analysis. In the numerous first-hand accounts of her female interviewees, she chooses to include the race of the narrator but for seemingly no reason; she never returns to make a comparative analysis – based on race – about the teenagers’ accounts. Identifying her subjects by race, thus inclines the reader to interpret each account through a racially stereotyped lens.

Ari Rachel understands about transformation. What she learned during her internship at JWI about the laws regarding rape on campus and the importance of activism as well as the Jewish values of kindness and community empowered her and were “ultimately the antidote to my suffering,” she told the audience at Michigan Hillel. She was able to finally heal.

In spite of this drawback, Tanenbaum compellingly argues that the movement to reclaim the term slut is racially insensitive. While white women have found the reclamation of slut empowering, women of color have found that it reinforces deeply rooted oppression against them. Ultimately, this shows that “woman” is not a universal experience and language can take on different meanings across peoples.

Elicia Brown is a freelance writer who lives in Manhattan.

Ari Eisen is a senior at the University of Michigan studying Global Environment and Health.

Tanenbaum challenges each of us to be intentional about the language we use and to eliminate “slut” from our vocabularies. Responding to this call to action is critical for the prevention of violence against women everywhere and for the creation of a safer, more equal environment.

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With dark humor and an edgy sensibility, Elisa Albert’s new novel After Birth (Houghton Mifflin) takes us into the inner world of Ari, a young mother living in an upstate New York college town who feels isolated and vulnerable a year after giving birth to her son. The town, which Ari describes as a “particularly sweet Hudson Valley dump,” was once a bustling factory town, but is now depressed, and possesses houses that ex-Brooklynites can afford, along with a used-book store, a coffee roaster and a nearby farmer’s market. As she seeks out a kindred spirit in the new-to-town and pregnant Mina, a former bass player in an all-female cult rock band, Ari’s life becomes almost bearable. Albert’s insights make Ari’s struggles to get her footing as a new mom recognizable, and her fearless humor elevates the book into the realm of social commentary. Albert, a certified doula and childbirth advocate, is the author of the acclaimed novel, The Book of Dahlia, in which she turned her satirical eye onto the life of a young slacker suffering from a brain tumor, and a collection of stories, How This Night Is Different.

In Prayers for the Living (Fig Tree Books), National Public Radio commentator Alan Cheuse explores the American dream and its downside through the story of three generations of the Blochs, an American Jewish family. The story unfolds as a series of conversations between a grandmother, Minnie Bloch, the family matriarch, and her friends. Set from the early to mid-20th century, the story involves Minnie’s son, a rabbi whose life is upended when he gets what he thinks is a message from his late father. He abandons his pulpit to pursue a life in the corporate realm and achieves success, yet fails to provide the support his wife and daughter need. This is a family saga in which the family members stumble, but Minnie’s commentary will resonate with the reader. Novelist Tova Mirvis contributes a forward. Fig Tree Books is a new independent press publishing fiction about the American Jewish experience.

The title of Alice Eve Cohen’s new memoir will speak to readers who’ve lost a parent. In a particularly daunting year – with challenges related to family and health – Cohen’s late mother seems to reenter her life, and linger. The Year My Mother Came Back (Algonquin) is full of moments of wisdom, deep candor and humor, and it’s beautifully written. Her mother, who had been a college professor and civil rights advocate before her death 31 years earlier, appears at Cohen’s kitchen table. The awardwinning author of What I Thought I Knew, Cohen is moved to revisit her bond with her mother and also with her two daughters, one adopted and one biological. This love story of both past and present, “isn’t a book about finding answers,” Cohen has said, “it’s about asking questions.”

SPRING READS

A serving of the season's newest lit

BY SANDEE BRAWARSKY

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READ Many American Jews will see traces of their family history in Hasia R. Diner’s new work, Roads Taken: The Great Jewish Migrations to the New World and the Peddlers Who Forged the Way (Yale University Press). A highly accessible study of cultural, social and economic history, Diner writes of the adventurous, hardy and ambitious young immigrant men – “a mass of ordinary people who in their ordinariness made history” – who set out on their own, with packs of goods on their backs. For many of their customers, the peddlers were the only Jews they’d encounter. And for many, selling on the road was a stepping stone to having their own shop and perhaps a chain of stores, and the success they had dreamed about.

The many admirers who discovered the writing of Irene Nemirovsky posthumously will appreciate her latest novel to be published in the U.S., The Fires of Autumn (Vintage), a prequel to her international bestseller Suite Francaise. Set in Paris, the novel spans the time between the eve of the First World War through the outbreak and early years of the Second World War, involving the intertwining lives, emotions and fates of several families.

This was written after Nemirovsky fled Paris in 1940, two years before she was killed in Auschwitz; it was published in France in 1957.

Alexis Landau’s impressively researched debut novel The Empire of the Senses (Pantheon) captures the tensions of the Pearlmutters, an assimilated Jewish family in Berlin between the World Wars. While exploring the themes of family loyalty and love, the book looks not at the Holocaust, but the culture and sensibility in the years leading up to it, showing why families like the Pearlmutters found it so difficult to grasp what was coming. Landau, now pursuing a Ph.D. in English literature and creative writing, is finishing a thesis on Irene Nemirovsky.

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JEWISH GHOST STORY The spirit of Hannah Nordhaus’s greatgreat-grandmother Julia is said to walk the halls of the famed La Posada hotel in Santa Fe. The writer set out to untangle the truth from the legend that surrounds this woman who emigrated to the American West as a young mail-order bride.

BY SANDEE BRAWARSKY

few days after her wedding in 1865, 21-year old Julia Schuster Staab left her large family and her village in the forested hills of northwestern Germany for the American frontier. With her new husband, Abraham, 26, who had left the village 11 years earlier and returned a wealthy man, she traveled by ship, railroad, steamboat and finally stagecoach along snow-covered mountain passes to reach Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Carrying with her trunks of stockings, jewelry, wedding gifts and furniture, the cultivated and elegant young bride had no idea of the life waiting ahead.

The couple arrived in early 1866 to a place of flat adobe buildings randomly arranged around a dirt plaza at the center of town. Streets were piled with garbage. This was the rough West, where parties in the local dirt-floor dance hall often ended in gunfire. Julia spoke neither English nor Spanish; there were few German speakers and even fewer Jews.

Author Hannah Nordhaus is Julia’s great-great-granddaughter. When she 60

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was growing up in Washington D.C., she was aware of Julia’s pioneering journey and had seen a photo of her in Victorian dress. Every summer, her family would visit Santa Fe and would stop by La Posada, the stately hotel that had been built by Abraham as the Staab family home. But mostly she knew her great-great-grandmother from the way most people referred to her: as a ghost. For years, there were stories told in Santa Fe of the apparition in a long black gown who appeared at La Posada (“place of rest”). Lights would go on inexplicably, chandeliers would sway and glasses would slip off of shelves.

Nordaus’s lyrical memoir, American Ghost: The True Story of a Family’s Haunted Past (Harper) tries to untangle truth and legend, the tale of success and the hardships of life, the woman and the ghost. Soon after the couple arrived in Santa Fe, Z. Staab and Bro. would become the largest wholesale company in the Southwest. Julia and Abraham had seven children and the eighth died. The family story is one of displacement, madness, inheritance

and disinheritance, forbidden love, lawsuits, suicides and family feuds, all far from the refined world the pianoplaying Julia had left behind.

The reader is struck by the bravery and inner fortitude of Julia and other mailorder brides who followed similarpaths.

Joanna Hershon’s 2008 novel, The German Bride, is based on Julia’s story.

The narrative skillfully weaves together Julia’s story, the story of Nordhaus’s search for Julia and the ghost story.

In an interview, Nordaus, who lives in Boulder, Colorado, notes that some of the research she did on the internet – finding newspaper articles, checking historical archives, consulting genealogy forums – would have been impossible a decade ago. She also found written works left by relatives, like a travel diary by her great-grandmother and her grandmother’s reminiscences of her own years as a young bride in New Mexico. No one alive remembers Julia, but Nordhaus found people who knew her children. A family tree at the beginning of the book is a useful reference.

“I learned by tracing Julia’s life how lucky we are to live in the times we do, to have the opportunities we have as Jewish women.”

photo by Casie Zalud

Nordhaus uncovered a family book of Jewish prayer, in German, in which Julia recorded the births of her children.

The author also traveled to the American Southwest and to Germany, and she was particularly interested to learn, for the first time, about the descendants of family members who stayed behind in Europe. From a cousin in Germany, she found out that a sister of Julia’s lived a long life, to be killed in the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1943.

The first article Nordhaus ever published, in her twenties, was about Julia.

Then she saw her ancestor as restless and unsatisfied, a victim of the decisions of others. About 20 years later, when she herself was a mother, Nordhaus found a photocopied copy of a book her great-aunt wrote in 1980 about the extended family. Then she began to think about Julia as a mother and as a woman who grew old far away from home and family. She wondered whether Julia and Abraham had a loving marriage, or whether he was a tyrant, as the ghost stories made him out to be; she wanted to find out about the sources of Julia’s apparent sadness, whether she was ill or just not resilient, if she was murdered or killed herself.

“She became a person, someone I cared about,” Nordhaus says. “She gave me

When asked about her take – after these years of research – on the ghost story, she says, “I would like to believe in her ghost – There is nothing I encountered that told me she was definitely a ghost or not. You can’t prove a negative. I believe in the power of her story and I believe in the power of the past to influence how we view the present.”

Sandee Brawarsky is an award-winning journalist and essayist. She is the book critic for the New York Jewish Week.

understanding of what a lot of people go through – how hard it is to be a woman, an immigrant.”

As for Abraham, she came to see that he was “a real and complicated person.”

She says, “He was a man of his time.

We can’t judge him by the standards of our time.”

About this memoir and her previous book, bestseller The Beekeeper’s Lament, she says, “I tend to write about quirky corners of the world. I like to shine light.” In writing American Ghost, she was inspired by Edmund de Waal’s The Hare With Amber Eyes. She loved his voice, the depth of his research and the way he entered his relatives’ worlds.

For Nordaus, writing this memoir has strengthened her Jewish identity. She explains that that her father, who is half-Jewish, was not in touch with his Jewish roots, and she came to see how Jewish his forebears were. She describes herself as culturally half-Jewish (her mother is Jewish).

Above: Julia Staab as a young bride; below: Julia and Abraham Staab early in their marriage.

Photos courtesy of the Family Collection.

“I just wrote a book about being Jewish,” she laughs. “Now I’m officially Jewish in a way I probably wasn’t before.”

She adds, “I learned by tracing Julia’s life how lucky we are to live in the times we do, to have the opportunities we have as Jewish women.”

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Legal Basics

Every Woman Needs TV legal analyst Lisa Green’s new book shows how the law can be a way to improve our lives and protect those we care about.

BY SUE TOMCHIN

In spite of the fact that they are well represented in the legal profession and make up a third of the justices on the highest court in the land, women are often unprepared for legal problems.

Attorney and NBC-TV legal analyst Lisa Green reports that time and again she has seen friends who are “dumbfounded” when they've come up against legal emergencies. With her immensely useful book, On Your Case: A Comprehensive, Compassionate (and only Slightly Bossy) Legal Guide for Every Stage of a Woman’s Life (William Morrow) Green hopes to prepare women to “understand the legal issues that will fall inevitably (and just like our jawlines) into the most carefully protected lives.”

Green is an adept and engaging writer.

Despite the verbal proclivities of others in her chosen profession, she avoids jargon and legalese and brings clarity, expertise, vivid anecdotes and dashes of humor to discussions about legal issues that women often encounter.

She looks at relationship-related topics, including protective steps women should follow when dating online; cohabitation and “pre-nup” agreements (the latter, she writes, forces couples 62

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to talk about finances and have a “full, fair exchange of information” about “assets, debts, and attitudes about money”); and who gets the ring if an engagement ends.

Besides giving the basics about steps to take regarding separation and divorce, Green also offers wisdom about how to behave as a parent in order to protect children during the process. She advises that no matter how angry a divorcing mom may be with a spouse, she needs to “Think about the future.

What relationship would you like to have with your children and their other parent in five, ten, or twenty years, at graduations, weddings and births? If you want those events to be happy… behave well now, even if it’s difficult.”

Green reviews the basics of workrelated issues that women encounter such as sex discrimination and working while pregnant (pregnancy related medical conditions must be treated the same way as all others); looks at the legal landscape for assisted pregnancy and adoption; provides an overview of domestic violence that includes pertinent information on restraining orders and stalking; and shows parents the laws that are in place to advocate for a special needs child. Her excellent section on later life issues delves into the essentials of estate planning, medical directives, power of attorney, and caring for aging parents and other older loved ones.

The message that comes through clearly in Green’s book is that the law is not something to avoid or fear. Instead, she writes in the afterword, it is “an expression of love,” a way to fulfill “your responsibilities as a partner, wife, exwife, mother, or daughter….[and] can help organize and improve every stage of our busy, rewarding lives.”

“What relationship would you like to have with your children and their other parent in five, ten, or twenty years, at graduations, weddings and births?

If you want those events to be happy... behave well now, even if it’s difficult.”

A Pep Talk from a Risk-Taker

BY SUE TOMCHIN

terrain of techies in hoodies, but of anyone undertaking a bold venture – from “improving your neighborhood to selling crafts out of your basement; from modernizing your family business to proposing a new initiative in your corporation.”

figure-enhancing panty hose on nights and weekends. She didn’t quit selling office supplies until she was “confident her entrepreneurial adventure would take off.”

Using real-life examples, she shows us that many of the assumptions about starting new ventures aren’t accurate anymore. Is writing a business plan a necessity before starting a business?

No. “Stop planning. Start doing,” is her advice. She cites the experience of Connecticut housewife Margaret Rudkin. When her son’s doctor told her that she needed to give the boy a natural foods diet, Rudkin got busy and perfected a loaf of homemade grain bread. Her son loved it and so did his doctor, so she took it to her local grocer. He bought every loaf she had with her, and ordered more. Her company Pepperidge Farms was born.

“Quality of life” also applies to entrepreneurs themselves: While you may be tempted to work 24 hours a day, her advice is to “Go Big AND Go Home.” One day, she had just finished packing and was preparing to leave for a business trip. As the cab pulled up, her daughter Eden tugged at her leg and said, “Remember, you can be an entrepreneur for a short time, but you’re a mommy forever.”

photo by Tim Francis

If you’ve ever fantasized about starting your own business (or even if you haven’t), Linda Rottenberg’s new book is an essential read. Crazy is a Compliment: The Power of Zigging When Everyone Else Zags (Penguin), challenges us to think and act like an entrepreneur because being nimble, adaptive and daring is an essential part of making it in today’s world – whether we work for ourselves, a Fortune 500 company, or a nonprofit organization. “Change is the only constant,” she writes. “We all need the skills required to continually reinvent ourselves,” to “take some risk or risk being left behind.”

Rottenberg is the CEO and co-founder of Endeavor, a global organization that identifies, mentors and co-invests in business innovators demonstrating potential for growth. Though it now has 350 employees and 20 affiliates throughout Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe, like many start-ups, Endeavor began two decades ago with a dream that she and business partner Peter Kellner boldly transformed into reality. Rottenberg made the leap into entrepreneurship despite the objections of others – in her case, her parents, who valued “steadiness and security” and who wanted her to use her Yale Law degree to pursue a more conventional career. When she faced the “juncture between doing what’s safe and expected and what’s uncertain and unknown,” she chose the latter.

Rottenberg writes about entrepreneurship in a fresh and inviting way, challenging us to see it not only as the

Rottenberg shows how times have changed with the story of another iconic entrepreneur, Ida Rosenthal, founder of Maidenform. While Rosenthal built a phenomenally successful business, giving women an innovative product that enhanced their lives and their figures, she “sped up her assembly lines and browbeat her union workers,” making her company a place where people didn’t want to work. Today, writes Rottenberg, “The biggest single change in the workplace of the entrepreneurial age is the list of priorities workers bring to the job. Paycheck is on the list, but it’s increasingly crowded out by new considerations: impact, freedom, quality of life.”

Do you have to risk “the farm” to start a business? No, says Rottenberg, citing the experiences of self-made billionaire Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx. She “derisked the risk” in starting her business by keeping her day job of selling copy machines, while marketing her JW Magazine | jwmag.org

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All-Terrain Gratitude How “Dayenu” helped me find freedom

BY ROBYN LEBOWITZ

It’s like I'm standing at the precipice, looking out into the chasm of my imperfect existence. I would scream, but the echo would only rattle in my heart AGAIN, and Again, and again. My internal compass tells me that Pesach is on the horizon, but the mindset of freedom has evaporated in this arid climate. Sure, a swig of water will sustain me. But even a shot of acceptance (or Jack Daniels) won't reinvigorate my heart, or change the scenery in front of me. What do you do when all your efforts lead back to this wasteland of frustration? I wonder if this is how the Jews of the Exodus felt when "freedom" turned into an arduous trek through the desert that pushed them to the brink. As I trudge on, the words of "Dayenu" taunt me: "It would have been enough."

Would it really have been enough if, for example, the sea had parted but our people were captured by the Egyptians? I wanted an answer (or maybe an admission), so I sought out the rabbi who will be performing my son’s bar mitzvah.

He told me about another interpretation of dayenu: "It would have been enough to praise G-d."

Those extra three words emphasize the importance of gratitude (versus outcome).

When we are thankful for all of our blessings along the way (without comparing them to what we think they should look like), we are better able to weather any landscape.

To be honest, the rocky terrain ahead scares me. But when I am fully present in the moment, I notice how the sun bathes the sediment with its fiery gaze, turning what was ashen into shades of purple, gold and terracotta. My path has twists and turns, but I am comforted that my passage is made easier by those who love me. If I get off-track, my community keeps me grounded and helps me stay the course.

Every step is a testament to my verve and valor, and I am grateful for each one as I continue on this journey – a labor of love to become the person I am meant to be. In this state of grace, something magical happens. I recognize that the challenge of the moment is transient – it does not define me. I acknowledge that I do not know what lies around the bend. And I hear another echo, similar to my own, reaching out to me.

At this time of freedom and renewal, may we all have the ability to see our blessings with clarity, regardless of the terrain.

When we truly feel thankful for what we have, the mindset of Dayenu carries a freedom all its own.

Robyn Lebowitz is grateful every day for her family and community. They fill her life with meaning, and inspire her to write from the heart.

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