Category Archives: Rosh Hashanah

“A tiny person with a big heart:” Losing our Bubbe on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been our favorite holiday. When we lived in Clifton Park, we celebrated for many years by running the Troy Turkey Trot in the morning and then joining the family for dinner at Larry’s cousins’ home in Argyle, New York. Our most memorable Thanksgiving was also our saddest. In 1974, two and a half months after we married, Larry’s beloved grandmother passed away.

Bubbe Rose was the matriarch of Larry’s family. Her tiny stature — she was under five feet and weighed less than one hundred pounds — belied her powerful presence. Everyone loved her.

Bubbe Rose was instrumental in making sure Larry and I got married. We had been seeing each other for a little over two months, but Bubbe was getting impatient and decided to intercede.

“So what is your relationship with this woman?” Bubbe Rose asked her only grandson.

“We’re dating,” Larry responded.

“You’ve dated long enough!” Bubbe said. “She’s a nice girl. Marry her.”

Fortunately for Bubbe, Larry and I didn’t waste much more time. We got engaged on Rosh Hashanah but waited to announce our plans after the Yom Kippur break-the-fast at the Shapiro’s Saratoga Springs home. As the holiday coincided that year with Larry’s father’s birthday, we held off until Ernie blew out the candles on his cake.

“I have a special present for you this year, Dad,” Larry said.

“Another stupid tie?” Larry’s sister Anita chimed in.

“No, I am giving you a daughter-in-law. Marilyn and I are engaged!” The family was thrilled, but no one was happier than Bubbe Rose.

Rose [née Slominsky] Hurwitz was born in 1894 in what the family believes was Russia. At a young age, she emigrated to the United States and settled in Syracuse. There she met and married Mose Hurwitz, a coal merchant. Their daughter (and my future mother-in-law) Doris was born in 1920; their son Asher was born eight years later. Rose was a true balabusta, a competent and skilled homemaker, and her home became the gathering place for family and friends for the Jewish holidays. Doris and Ernie were married in the Hurwitz living room on June 20, 1942.

Bubbe’s home in Syracuse remained the heart of the family throughout the next two decades. Immediately following their wedding, Ernie reported for duty at his army assignment in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Doris joined him but returned to Syracuse to deliver their first child, Anita, a year later. Five years later now living in Schuylerville, New York, Doris returned to Syracuse for the birth of their second child, Larry. Mose died less than a year later, and Asher took over the coal business. In 1950, Ernie’s mother Celia died, making Rose their only surviving grandmother.

When Ernie was called back to service during the Korean War, Doris, along with the two children, waited out his return at Bubbe’s home. Once Ernie was discharged, the family moved to Saratoga Springs, where Ernie resumed his pre-military career running Shapiro’s of Schuylerville. Every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur was spent in Syracuse, along with frequent visits.

By the early sixties, Doris and Ernie had added two more children to their family: Marilyn in 1953 and Carole in 1959. Rather than Doris and Ernie packing up the six Shapiros for the drive to Syracuse, Bubbe Rose and Asher came to Saratoga Springs for most of the holidays and for at least one weekend a month. If the family couldn’t be in Syracuse, Bubbe and Asher brought Syracuse with them: baked goods from Snowflake Pastry Shoppe; white fish and cold cuts from one of the city’s kosher delis; and back issues of the Syracuse Herald-Journal so Doris could catch up with her hometown news.

Larry has two favorite stories about Bubbe’s legendary cooking skills. On March 29, 1959, Larry and Asher watched their beloved Syracuse Nationals defeat the Boston Celtics in the sixth game of the playoffs in the city’s War Memorial auditorium. (Unfortunately the Nats lost the critical seventh game, a loss Larry still remembers with regret.) The next day, Larry came down with the flu, necessitating his staying in Syracuse for the following week. Bubbe Rose believed that the only way to cure him was to feed him endlessly.

In 1971, Larry was accepted to graduate school at Syracuse University, and he moved in with Bubbe Rose and Asher. He probably did not weigh more than 126 pounds when he arrived. Along with breakfast and dinner, Bubbe insisted on packing him elaborate lunches, which Larry shared with his envious fellow students. In less than two months, he had gained sixteen pounds, some of the weight taken off before he graduated. By the time we met at a Purim party in March 1973, he had settled into his adult weight..

We were married on September 8, 1974. Bubbe Rose attended the wedding, looking beautiful in a long pink gown. On November 23, she suffered a stroke. Doris immediately went to Syracuse to be with her. As the week progressed, her condition worsened; by Wednesday, she was unconscious and unresponsive. On Thanksgiving Day, November 28, Larry and I drove to Syracuse to see her for what we knew was the last time. We walked into the hospital room, quietly shared with her that we were there, and told her how much we loved her. To our surprise, she reached out and gently touched our hands. Moments later, she passed away. In a strange way, we got to spend one last holiday with her—a holiday we will always remember.

Was Rose Hurwitz a remarkable woman? She did not write any books. She did not make any scientific discoveries. She was not a movie star. To her children and their siblings, however, she was as remarkable as anyone who had ever lived.

How do you honor a person who meant so much to you? You pass her story onto your children and grandchildren. You have a daughter, a granddaughter, and niece who all have the middle name of Rose. And you always remember that Thanksgiving Day when she touched your hand for the last time.

Bubbe Rose front and center at our wedding

Climb every mountain as long as you can…Reflections on Rosh Hashanah

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Are the trails getting steeper? Or am I getting older?

These were my thoughts as Larry and I climbed Shrine Ridge Trail in Summit County in early July. We had been in Colorado for ten days before we attempted the hike, so I believed I had acclimated my body to the altitude. But we started at 11,000 feet and would peak closer to 12,000. As I huffed and puffed up the trail, I never doubted I would finish. The bulldog in me would never give up. But could I do this next year? In five years? Who knows?

Larry and I DID finish our climb on that beautiful summer day. We got up to the top and took in the colorful wildflowers and the amazing vistas, grateful we could still climb mountains at our age.

In the weeks that followed, we often chose an easier three-mile hike that we accessed with a short walk from our rental. In early August, however, Larry and I met our friends Sandie and Howie for a more challenging hike up the Herman Gulch Trail in the Ranger District of the Arapaho National Forest. During our four-mile hike, we encountered a couple of around our age descending. I posed my “Steeper or older” question aloud.

“Neither,” the man told me. “We are experiencing geographical uplift, a phenomenon in which the earth shifts to steeper inclines as we age.”

Okay, maybe Earth is NOT in fact shifting. But our lives have. Before we left for our summer in cooler temperatures, a close friend, a non-smoker, had just been diagnosed with lung cancer. Another friend’s cancer had returned. And a third friend, who had biked 86 miles for his eighty-sixth birthday, died a week later of a heart attack while on a shorter ride. “He was doing what he loved,” people said. But I doubt that it was sufficient comfort to the family he left behind.

Our time in the mountains changed as well. Friends we looked forward to seeing every summer developed health issues and/or “aged out” as they could no longer handle the high altitude. One of Larry’s pickleball buddies had told us last summer that he and his wife were opting out of summers in Summit County and renting a place in a mountainous region of Arizona, reducing their elevation by 4000 feet. Dear friends who had been part of our summer plans for over ten years, whether eating out, hiking, or playing cutthroat games of Mexican Train, also had to give up their beautiful home in Dillion, Colorado, and remain in Charlotte, North Carolina, at a more comfortable 671 feet above sea level.

And then the “life can change on a dime” phenomenon hit our own family very hard soon after Larry and I returned to Florida. Two days after coming home from an incredible cruise through the British Isles with my brother, sister-in-law, and a friend, my sister Laura was hospitalized in Upstate New York with breathing problems. Doctors were trying to determine the exact cause of her symptoms when she took a turn for the worse. Diagnosis: a rare form of pneumonia. Grim news followed: Laura was on a ventilator in the intensive care unit. We had two days of optimism when she was taken off the ventilator. She was looking forward to her life after hospitalization and rehab: a highly anticipated move to San Diego, California, to be closer to her children and grandchildren. But her 83-year-old body failed. She passed away on Friday, August 29.

The four Cohen children had been fortunate indeed. Whereas some of our friends have strained or non-existent relationships with their siblings and/or their spouses, we all had remained close—maybe even closer as we had all realized how life can change on a dime. And now one of us is gone, leaving the three of us to grieve with other family members and friends who will miss her so much.

“On Rosh Hashanah, all who enter the world pass before Him,” reads a passage in the Mishnah. One Jewish interpretation is that we march single file like sheep before God to determine whether we will be written in the Book of Life. Another interpretation is that we march like soldiers. But my favorite interpretation, reflecting on my summer in the mountains, comes from Resh Lakish, a third century BCE scholar. The rabbi envisioned this march taking place before God on a mountain, each person walking cautiously, single file, along a narrow, treacherous path.

As I observe the High Holy Days this year, warm memories of my beloved “big sister” will be forefront in my thoughts. Prayers for those we lost and those who are ill will take on even greater significance. Will I be climbing mountains in 5786? Hopefully, I will tackle Shrine Ridge and Herman Gulch with the same vigor and determination I did this past summer. But thanks to Resh Lakish, when I am in one of those narrow and knowing me, not-TOO treacherous paths, I will hope that God is looking down and giving me the strength to move forward in my life, no matter where the path takes me.

Sources:

Liben, Rabbi Daniel. “Sheep, Mountain Hikers, and Soldiers.” Temple Israel of Natick, Massachusetts. Rosh Hashannah 5756. https://www.tiofnatick.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/rh_sermon_2015.pdf

McCullough Gulch. Not sure if we will hike this one again!

Making a difference in the new year

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This article was originally written for Rosh Hashanah 5785 (September 2024). It may be a little late for the High Holy Days, but the message is also valuable as we begin the secular year of of 2025.

The High Holy Days is a time for us to turn inward, to reflect on our lives, not only where we have been but also where we hope to go in the coming year. So much of the world needs our help. What can one person do? How can one person make a difference?

In the Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Tarfon writes,“It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.” That quote has been in my email signature for several years and serves as a reminder to me and those that read it that we can all can make a difference. No, we cannot save the world. But our inability to do EVERYTHING does not give us a pass on doing nothing.

This truth is found in the often-told starfish parable. An old man is walking along the beach in which hundreds of starfish have been washed along the shore during high tide. As he walked, he came across a little girl who is throwing the starfish back into the ocean. “You realize that you will not be able to make much of a difference,” the old man tells the little girl. She picked up another starfish and threw it as far into the water as she could. “I made a difference to that one.”

It reminds me of “starfish” moment. On a recent trip to the beach, Larry and I were walking along the edge of the water. As Larry was enjoying the waves and the birds, I was picking up garbage and sticking it in a plastic bag I brought with me for that purpose. A broken styrofoam cup. A short length of cord. A lone flipflop. And a dozen or so plastic caps from water bottles.

“You can’t pick up every bit of litter on the beach,” Larry said.

“Yes. But I can do something!”

Yes, Larry was right. I am not going to pick up every piece of litter on a beach. But I can at least fill up a plastic bag with some of it.

Giving away my freshly baked challahs also gives me a chance to do something . Early into the pandemic, I started baking three or four challahs a week. At least one of the challahs went to someone in our community who needed cheering. The first one went to a friend whose wife was in a memory unit at the hospital. Week after week, we delivered challahs to people who had lost their spouse, who faced illness; who got bad news from their families. My small challahs were small tokens of love and caring. My challah baking has slowed down in recent months, and I usually make extras to tuck in the freezer to pull out as needed. It just filled my need to do SOMETHING!

For the past ten years, my writing has been a way for me to feel as if I am making a difference. Initially my writing focused on my family stories. In the past eight years, I have become captivated by telling other people’s stories, the lives of Holocaust survivors. So much has been written already: fictional accounts, memoirs, graphic novels, poetry, plays. Many of have become classics: Elie Wiesel’s Night;Prima Levi’s Man’s Search for Meaning; William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, and Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl. Then why do I continue to interview Holocaust survivors and their families?

Writing these stories allows me to do my part to make the world never forget. Each story is a statement against Holocaust denial. And having each story published has brought feelings of pride, comfort, and maybe some peace to the subjects and their family. Following Rabbi Tarfon’s advice, my inability to write everything doesn’t mean I cannot continue to do something.

And what happens when one person joins others to make a difference? Fortunately, I am surrounded by people in my 55+ community who are also doing their part to help people in the greater Poinciana area. Solivita has over 200 clubs, and many of them support the local community. The Do Unto Others Initiative (DUO) has raised over $260,000 in 11 years to support the work of the St. Rose of Lima Food Pantry. Another club, Solivita Friends Helping Those In NEED, provides similar support for St. Vincent de Paul St. Ann’s Food Pantry in Haines City. Solivita Friends of Elementary Education Schools (SoFEEs) provides nourishment, school supplies and seasonally appropriate clothing to local elementary schools. In the past nineteen years, Stonegate Women’s Golf Association (SWGA) has been able to provide over $300k to local community charities. The Solivita Performing Arts Council (SPAC, Inc.) has raised over $139,000 since its inception, providing grants to help local schools purchase and maintain instruments, fund band and choir concerts, produce school theatrical productions, fund thespian workshops and support art projects. SOLABILITY, a club consisting of individuals of varying abilities, provides activities accessible to all. Members of the Butterfly Club provide financial support for our beautiful butterfly garden; volunteers keep it weeded and in control. Our Book Circle, which has over 30 book clubs under its umbrella, donates books and financial help to Polk County Schools. The Shalom Club makes an annual contribution to the Perlman Food Pantry or Jewish organizations supporting local families. The organizations above represent only a small sample of ways individuals have joined together to help those in need.

So, yes, one person can make a difference. Wishes for a sweet, healthy 5785. May it be a year in which each of us make a difference.

Solivita’s butterfly garden

Published in Rosh Hashanah 2024 issues in Capital District New York’s The Jewish World and Orlando’s Heritage Florida Jewish News.

Solivita is a 55+ community for active adults in Poinciana, Florida.

Do Something! The Gift of Giving Back

Holding on tight to my Jewish roots….

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Since the year that we met, my husband Larry and I have attended Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year—services. We hear the shofar, listen to melodies that we only hear on the High Holy Days, and greet our friendswith L’Shana Tova—Have a good year!

Attending High Holy Day services as an adult is different from my experiences as a child growing up in Keeseville, a small upstate town of two thousand people about ninety minutes south of Montreal. My uncle Paul had opened Pearl’s, one of a chain of small department stores he had established in Vermont and Upstate New York. He hired my father to manage it. Although my parents had both grown up in New York City in Jewish neighborhoods, they had lived most of their married life in overwhelmingly Christian communities. In 1952, however, they found themselves in a town where they were the only Jewish family except for a childless couple, a lawyer and his wife. The next Jewish family didn’t move in until the mid-sixties.

To offset the effects of our non-Jewish environment, my parents immediately joined Congregation Beth Shalom, a Reform temple in Plattsburgh. We attended High Holy Day services and, depending on the weather conditions for the fifteen-mile drive, Shabbat services on Friday night. Saturday services were only held for the boys’ bar mitzvahs; all the girls were confirmed at age sixteen.

In addition to attending services, my parents were insistent on their children getting a Jewish education. For a span of twenty years, our father made the trip up Route 9 every Sunday with whatever number of his children between the ages of five to sixteen were taking religious school lessons. We would arrive in Plattsburgh a half hour early. Then Dad would take us to the newsstand across the street from the temple on Oak Street. He purchased the New York Times for himself and comic books for us, our perk for going to Sunday School. My brother Jay chose Superman; Laura and Bobbie, Archie and Richie Rich; and I, Classics Illustrated. Dad would then wait for us in his idling car —It got cold in that parking lot in the winter—reading the paper and smoking Kents. Over the years, all of us learned Jewish history, customs, and ethics. Jay learned Hebrew for his bar mitzvah. The three of us girls’ Hebrew education was limited to the six-word Shema and blessings over bread, candles and wine. When we got home from school, Mom would have an elaborate dinner waiting for us—brisket, roasted potatoes, candied carrots, pickles, and delicious spiced apples from a jar—another perk for our going to Sunday school.

As residents of Keeseville and members of a temple in Plattsburgh, we were caught between two worlds. As we did not live in Plattsburgh, we often viewed ourselves as outsiders at Temple Beth Israel. My mother, in particular, did not feel comfortable with many of the congregants. A daughter of poor Russian immigrants, she often felt inferior to those who were third or fourth generation German Jews who historically regarded themselves as more educated and refined than those from the shtetls—the small towns with large Jewish populations which existed in Central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.

The residents of Keeseville were generally welcoming to our family, and we rarely experienced anti-Semitism. There were moments, however, that are etched in my memory. My parents were usually included, but there were occasional “lost” invitations to events, and we knew some viewed us as different. On rare occasions, the insults were more direct. When I was around six years old, I was playing on my front lawn with my doll. A teenaged boy who lived up the street came by and, giving the Nazi goose salute, yelled “Heil Hitler!” I ran inside crying. Jay, four years older than I, ran out of the house to chase him down and punch him in the nose. When Jay was in high school, the local priest advised his young female parishioners that it was best not to date “Hebrews.” Obviously, this did not help Jay’s social life.

The High Holy Days emphasized this “otherness” even more strongly. We did not attend school on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. My father closed the store, an event worthy of coverage in the Essex County Republican. Jay, who played football for Keeseville Central, missed every game that fell on the two major fall holidays, again newsworthy enough to make the local paper.

Everyone in Keeseville knew that the Cohens celebrated their Jewish High Holy Days, but I was still sensitive to our being the only children missing school. One Rosh Hashanah, I was pushing my doll carriage in front of the house when I was overcome with embarrassment. What if someone saw me and wondered if I were playing hooky? I went inside to avoid the potential scrutiny and a visit from the truancy officer.

My feeling of “otherness” continued as the seasons changed. Beginning in November, I often had to explain that Chanukah was not the “Jewish Christmas,” and no, we didn’t have a Christmas tree or a Chanukah bush. As soon as we returned to school from the Thanksgiving break, the music classes I attended and, later, the choruses I joined in junior senior high, were filled with Christmas music. I could handle “Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Deck the Halls.” When it came to the line in “Silent Night” which stated “Christ the Savior is born,” however, I would just mouth the words. The token inclusion of the song “I Had a Little Dreidel” didn’t make me feel that the school was sensitive to my religion and culture

Other events brought their challenges. Passover often fell around Easter, and I watched my Christian friends devour bunny shaped chocolate eggs and jelly beans while I nibbled on my dry matzoh and butter. Once again, I felt different. In high school, my World History textbook reduced the Holocaust to the iconic 1943 picture from the Warsaw Ghetto of a German soldier pointing his machine gun at a little boy, clad in a coat with the yellow star, holding up his hands in terror. I can still remember looking down and crying silent tears while the teacher quietly and sympathetically moved on to the next topic. I understood clearly that the horror of the persecution of the Jews was diminished by this negligible treatment of the Holocaust in our textbook.

For many years, I saw other Jewish children mostly at Sunday School. As I got older, I joined a Jewish youth group and finally had Jewish friends. For the most part, however, our friends were our Christian classmates from Keeseville. We all dated in high school, but my parents pressed upon us their wish we would leave Keeseville after we graduated and make our lives in settings with more Jewish people.

In part because of my desire to be with other Jews, I enrolled in University of Albany in 1968. While at college, I attended High Holy Day services at Congregation Beth Emeth, but that was the extent of my Jewish participation until I met my future husband in 1973.

Larry and I attended High Holy Day services at Congregation Shaara TFille, the then-Orthodox shul—synagogue—in Saratoga to which his family belonged. What a dramatic difference for me! Men sat in the center pews, and the women, although not behind a mehitzah, (a curtain which separated the men from the women), sat in the back or on the sides. Most of the service was in Hebrew, and everyone prayed at what seemed to be lightning speed. Page numbers that were displayed on a chart on the bima provided my only means of following along with the prayer book. The services were much longer than those at Temple Beth Israel, and even the rabbis, with their black beards, payots (side curls), and yarmulkes (skull caps), were strange to me. In many ways, it was as foreign to me as the churches I had attended on occasion with my Christian friends.

After Larry and I were married, we bought a home in Clifton Park, a suburb of Albany, New York, in part because we knew that a synagogue had recently been built in the community. We joined in 1983, and we found that the Conservative service was a good compromise between Larry’s Orthodox shul and my Reform temple. Ten years later, I celebrated my own bat mitzvah on my father’s eightieth birthday, my way of honoring his commitment to our Jewish education.

Throughout my life, people assume that I, like many Jews, was brought up “downstate,” in New York City or Long Island. When I tell them about growing up in Keeseville, they comment, “That must have been hard!”

It had its challenges, but it also offered wonderful opportunities. I grew up in a loving, close knit family, developed lifelong friendships, and enjoyed the beauty of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. I proudly identify myself as an Upstate New Yorker, with roots still entwined in that tiny town an hour south of the Canadian border.

Because of my unique upbringing, rather than losing my Jewish identity, my faith grew stronger. I could never take being a Jew for granted. And having a faith I had to hold on so tightly to maintain makes each High Holy Day, each Jewish milestone, even sweeter.

A version of this story was published in The Jewish World, August 29, 2013. I am finally posting it on my blog eleven years later!

Marilyn and Larry Rosh Hashanah 1973 (Shh! We were engaged but didn’t tell anyone yet!)

I Am Enough

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I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time. Anna Freud

Since 2015, Larry and I have spent six weeks in Frisco, Colorado, a beautiful mountain town nestled in the Rockies. Our rented condo is a two-minute walk to my daughter Julie and her family. We breathe in the fresh mountain air and savor the beauty that surrounds us. We hike on miles of trail that take us under shimmering aspens, by flowing streams, and onto the shores of blue mountain lakes that reflected the snow-topped mountains.

Frisco has always been a place of peace and renewal, but this summer I carried with me an emotional burden. I had recently launched on Amazon Keep Calm and Bake Challah: How I Survived the Pandemic, Politics, Pratfalls, and Other of Life’s Problems. My fourth book had been met with much initial excitement and congratulatory praise from the family and friends I had notified, but I had sold only eleven copies. Book stores and businesses to whom I had sent copies had not responded, and a planned ZOOM book club centered on my writing fell through. Since my post-retirement venture into writing and blogging, I had published over 300 articles and self-published three books in addition to Keep Calm, but I was disappointed in my perceived lack of feedback and inability to grow my audience.

Larry tried to comfort me by sharing his pride in what I had accomplished, but to no avail. I reached out to a few close friends to share my hurt. One friend offered wise advice. “You put yourself behind the eight ball when you rely on others to make you feel successful,” she wrote in late-night text. “If you can internalize your completing and following through on your passion, you are a success.” I ignored her as well. Two recommended counseling. I told them I’d think about it.

Instead, my doubts spread to every major decision I had made in my life. I questioned every choice I had ever made: my college, my major, my career, my houses, my retirement, even the color I had painted the walls inside of my house.

Outside of entries into my daily journal, I stopped writing. “I’m taking a break,” I wrote to Laurie Clevenson, my editor at the Capital Region of New York’s Jewish World. “Are you okay?” she, who had become accustomed to a submission every two weeks for the past ten years, wrote back immediately. I initially drafted a long explanation of my emotional state then deleted it. “I just need time off,” I reiterated. “I want to enjoy my time in the mountains without deadlines.”

I finally shared with Julie my crushing disappointment I had experienced when sales—and the resulting praise—for my articles and my books—failed to meet up to my expectations. My daughter, as always, was compassionate and understanding. “I’m sorry I didn’t provide the external validation you needed for your writing,” she said.

WAIT! Wasn’t that what my friend had referenced when she tried to console me in June? I went back to read over her text. “You also cannot make others feel obligated to stroke your ego,” she had said, a comment that angered me at the time. “I have learned that it is unimportant what others think, you need to be proud of YOU.”

For the first time in my life, I realized how much I had depended on external validation.This was not limited to my writing. Almost every aspect of my life, I had required the approval and thumbs-up from family, friends, and even strangers. Did I choose the right career path? Buy the right house? Wear the right clothes? Weigh the right amount on the bathroom scale? Choose the right doctor? Travel to the right places with the right cruise line/tour group or guide book? Plan our retirement the right way? My need for validation was obsessive, intrusive, and self-defeating.

With this new insight, I finally began to heal. Walking outside, surrounded by mountains and aspens and waterfalls and creeks, I realized that I write because I simply love to write. I took pride in the fact that my articles had been published in media sources from as close as Orlando’s Heritage and as far away as Australia. I was grateful for the time I had taken to interview, research, and write stories about Jewish Holocaust survivors so their sacrifice, strength, and survival can be recognized. And yes, I had gotten positive feedback from many readers, including my blog followers. Even though my books may never be on the New York Times best seller list, I have given my children and grandchildren a gift of my stories that will be my legacy.

Moreover, I extended this new-found self-acceptance to other areas of my life. I chose not to focus on what Robert Frost called “The Road Not Taken,” Instead, I took pride and joy in all the decisions I had made alone or with Larry that led us to the life we have now, which is filled with love, joy, thankfully good health, and happiness. Rather than depending on others to validate my choices, I decided to trust myself.

The weight I had been carrying for my whole life began to slide off my shoulders. As the poet e.e. cummings wrote, “ “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” Since the pandemic, my mantra had been “I am exactly where I need to be.” I now have added the following: “I am enough. I do enough. I have enough.” And I don’t need anyone but myself to affirm that fact.

What a lovely way to start off the Jewish New Year! L’Shana Tova!

5784 Reading List: Marilyn Shapiro Releases New Anthology

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As Jews around the world herald in the Hebrew Year 5784, I am celebrating Rosh Hashanah with the release of my fourth book, Keep Calm and Bake Challah: How I Survived the Pandemic, Politics, Pratfalls, and Other of Life’s Problems.

Before you start getting out your baking pans, please be warned: No, this is NOT a cookbook!

In March 2020, as the reality of COVID-19 hit home, I started baking challah, the delicious, braided egg bread that is typically eaten on the Sabbath and other important Jewish holidays. More importantly, I started WRITING about baking challah. Getting inspiration from England’s World War II rallying cry, I searched the internet and found Keep Calm Maker on Zazzle, an American on-line marketplace, could create an apron with a Keep Calm and Bake Challah logo embroidered on the top half. The yellow cotton pinafore arrived in June and my wearing it while baking the loaves became as necessary to the process as kneading the flour, sugar, salt, oil, and yeast. I knew that the mantra would be the title of my book.

Over the next two and half years, I wrote about baking challah. I also wrote about adjusting to the “new normal.” Wearing masks. Zooming with family and friends. Missing in-person birthdays, bar and bat mitzvahs, graduations, weddings, and funerals. Following the news as the country was split apart. Emerging slowly back into life more closely resembling the pre-COVID years. Finally meeting my San Francisco grandson who was born days before California began its shelter-in-place orders. Resuming our summers at 9100 feet in Colorado. And dealing with our own COVID illnesses.

In April 2023, my editor Mia Crews and I were putting the final touches on Keep Calm and Bake Challah before publication. We were going back and forth with necessary changes to the fifty-three stories as well as the cover, which featured a picture of me wearing my apron and holding a huge, braided loaf. Finally, Mia uploaded the first draft copy of the book. That Friday afternoon, I greeted the deliveryman as he handed me the brown envelope that held my new “baby.”

“Thank you so much!” I told him. “It’s my book!”

“That’s nice,” he said, as he turned around and started heading for his truck.

“No, it’s not any book,” I said. “It’s my book! I wrote it. Do you want to see it?”

Before he could answer, I tore open the envelope and showed him the proof copy.

“That’s nice,” he said. “You wrote a cookbook.”

“No, it’s NOT a cookbook,” I said. “It’s a collection of stories about my life during the pandemic.”

As he left, however, I took a closer look at the cover. It DID look like a cookbook. That opinion was confirmed by several other people to whom I showed the proof.

Over that weekend, I agonized over my dilemma. Did I need a new cover? A new title? Or did I need to throw out hundreds of hours of writing and editing, keep the cover and title, and just write a cookbook? I seriously considered a title change—Thankful? Finding a Silver Lining?—until a conversation with five of my cousins on our weekly Tuesday Zoom call.

“Don’t change the title,” they said. “Just put a banner proclaiming, ‘No! This is NOT a cookbook!’”

I gladly followed their advice. I had been working on this book since March 2020, and I knew that the chosen title best reflected all those months of dealing with the pandemic. More importantly, I loved the title. No matter how many people passed up on my book because it looks like a cookbook, at least the title and cover would be what I dreamt it would be from the beginning of this journey.

So I proudly present Keep Calm and Bake Challah: How I Survived the Pandemic, Politics, Pratfalls, and Other of Life’s Problems. For all of you who hoped it was a cookbook, I hope you enjoy it anyway. And to make everyone happy, my challah recipe is included at the end of the book. Happy baking!

Keep Calm and Bake Challah: How I Survived the Pandemic, Politics, Pratfalls, and Other of Life’s Problems is available on Amazon. Click here for more information.

Gammy making challah with her granddaughter

The Lost Mural

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My father, Bill Cohen, (Z”L) loved to play Jewish geography, and he proudly shared with us how the first synagogue in Burlington was founded in his grandfather’s kitchen. As we lived on the New York side of Lake Champlain, we visited many aunts, uncles, and cousins who lived in the Queen City and the surrounding areas. One was Uncle Paul Pearl (born Pesach Ossovitz), who learned the peddling trade from his uncle Archic Perelman and went on to oversee 27 Pearl’s department stores in Upstate New York and Vermont. And then there were Uncle Moe Pearl, who owned several businesses in the area, and his wife Bess; Ruth (Pearl) Kropsky and her husband Isidore; and Aunt Ida and her husband Max Ahrens. May their memories be a blessing and live on in Congregation Ohavi Zedek and its beautiful “Lost Mural.”

When the Pels family attended the High Holy Day services in September, 2022, Congregation Ohavi Zedek had a welcome addition: the restored “Lost Mural” in the foyer, completed in June 2022 by the Lost Mural Project. The story of the mural began almost 150 years earlier, in the kitchen of one of its founding members, Isaac Perelman.

Although Jews had settled in Burlington as early as 1848, the 1880s saw an influx of Eastern European Jews facing persecution by Russians in all phases of their personal, professional, and religious lives. Others came up from New York City to escape work in the sweatshops; a few migrated from Plattsburgh, New York, as it didn’t have an orthodox shul. Most became peddlers in northern Vermont, selling their wares from horse or man-drawn carts.

Initially, a group of ten Jewish men—only two had families with them, met for services in members’ homes, a former coffin shop, or the second floor of an office building. By 1885, the Jewish community of Burlington, Vermont, recognized the need to organize a synagogue. Eighteen men met in the kitchen of Isaac Perelman, an immigrant from Čekiškė, Lithuania. Having already procured a lay leader/Kosher butcher, they purchased a lot for $25, formerly the site of an old stone shed at Hyde and Archibald streets. With $800, they built a synagogue building, naming their new shul Congregation Ohavi Zedek (Lovers of Justice).

Over the next few years, the Jewish population of Burlington continued to grow, fed by the founders. Isaac and his wife Sarah alone had six surviving children; his brothers Aaron and Jacob also had large families. By 1906, there were 162 Jewish families. The area in Burlington, dubbed “Little Jerusalem,” was laid out like the shtetls in the residents’ native Lithuania with houses and kosher bakery, kosher dairy, and a kosher butcher. The Jewish community built two more synagogues, including Chai Adam (Life of Man), and Ahavath Gerim (Love of Strangers). In 1910, the three synagogues built a Hebrew Free School together in 1910, the Talmud Torah.

In 1910, Chai Adam commissioned a 24-year-old Lithuanian immigrant and professional sign painter named Ben Zion Black to create a mural for $200. Upon completion, the project featured prayer walls and a painted ceiling. The centerpiece was a 25-foot-wide, 12-foot-high three part panel, created in the vibrant and colorful painted art style present in hundreds of Eastern European wooden synagogue interiors in the 18th and 19th centuries. The mural featured the Ten Commandments in its center and golden Lions of Judah on either side, with the artist’s rendering of the sun’s rays adding light. Blue and red curtains and pillars filled the side panels, all representing the artist’s interpretation of the Tent of the Tabernacle as described in the Book of Numbers and the Book of Exodus.

In 1939, amid a decline in the Jewish population, Chai Adam merged with Ohavi Zedek. After 1952, several buyers purchased the former Chai Adam building, which later became a carpet store and warehouse. In 1986, a developer purchased it with plans to renovate the building into multiple apartments. Recognizing that the future of the mural was in jeopardy, Aaron Goldberg, the archivist for Ohavi Zedek synagogue and a descendant of Ohavi Zedek’s founding immigrants, persuaded the new owner to seal the mural behind a false wall, in 1986. Goldberg, archivist Jeff Potash; Shelburne Museum’s curator of collections, Richard Kershner; and architect Marcel Beaudin hoped to reclaim the mural at a later date.

Before being hidden, Ben Zion Black’s daughters took and paid for archival quality photographs of the mural. Renovations destroyed much of the painting, but a wall covered the mural over the ark.

In 2010, Goldberg partnered with his childhood friend and former Trinity College of Vermont history professor Jeff Potash to establish the Lost Mural Project with plans to establish a new home for the mural and restore the work to its original glory. They reached an agreement with the Offenhartz family, the next owners of the Chai Adam building, that the mural would be uncovered and donated to the Lost Mural Project. This was done with the understanding that the Lost Mural Project would be solely responsible for all costs of stabilizing, moving, cleaning and restoring the Lost Mural.

In 2012, after over two decades, workers removed the false wall. A curator reported that Black’s creation had sustained extensive damage with “the painting hanging off its plaster base like cornflakes.” Over the next three years, the Lost Mural Project raised substantial funds from individuals, businesses, and foundations for the mural’s paint to be stabilized. In May 2015, workers moved the mural, encased in steel and weighing approximately 500 pounds, to Ohavi Zedek.

Following the mural’s move, the Lost Mural Project committee incorporated, rebranded and tirelessly sought funding for the mural’s cleaning and full restoration with the help of its board and Madeleine Kunin, the former Vermont governor and US ambassador to Switzerland. By 2022, they had raised over one million dollars from local, state, national, and international donors.

In 202, two conservators hired by the Lost Mural Project began the painstaking task of cleaning the mural. Using the archival photos taken in 1985, they used a gel solvent and cotton swabs to remove darkened varnish, dirt, and grime from the painting’s surface. The next year, a second team of conservators from Williamstown Art Conservation Center in Massachusetts began the infill, coloring and final restorations. According to Goldberg, the COVID-19 pandemic was a blessing, as it gave the team of workers the space and quiet needed to complete the project in the shuttered shul.

“So many things could have gone wrong with the mural, but it survived through fate and circumstance,” says Goldberg. “It’s not just a surviving remnant. It’s a surviving piece with an astonishing history.”

Ohavi Zedek’s Senior Rabbi Amy Small, who saw the 2022 restoration step by step, views the Lost Mural Project as a universal immigrant story. “It’s significant not only to the Jewish community and the descendants of those early settlers of Burlington, but also to other immigrants in the United States, which offered safety for Jewish and other families fleeing from many parts of the world.”

The Preservation Trust of Vermont presented the Friends of the Lost Mural with its 2022 Preservation Award. “The Lost Mural…not only exemplifies the rich history of creativity and resilience in Burlington’s Jewish community,” stated Ben Doyle, its president. “It inspires all of us to remember that the Vermont identity is dynamic and diverse.”

In June 2022, the completed project’s unveiling took place amid much fanfare. The Friends honored Governor Kunin for her contributions, and a Vermont Klezmer band provided the music. Dignitaries both in attendance and through Zoom highlighted the importance of the project. Joshua Perelman, Chief Curator & Director Of Exhibitions And Collections, National Museum Of American Jewish History called the mural “a treasure and also a significant work, both in American Jewish religious life and the world of art in this country.”

Many of the descendants of the original Lithuanian Jews who settled in Burlington over one hundred and fifty years earlier were present, including descendants of Isaac and Aaron Perelman.

“[The mural] tells us a remarkable story of a thriving Jewish immigrant community from Lithuania and the successful efforts of their descendants to preserve their cultural legacy today,” H. E. Audra Plepyte, the ambassador of Lithuania to the United States stated in remarks shared with Ohavi Zedek. “The Lost Mural is not lost anymore.

”The Lost Mural Project, an independent secular nonprofit, is seeking donations to replicate the green corridors on the original painting that did not survive. Its educational mission is to share the story of the Lost Mural and the lost genre of the East European wooden painted synagogues with people and facilities around the world.More information, including details of the Mural’s miraculous journey, can be found at https://www.lostmural.org/donate.

Originally published September 20, 2022. Updated May 26, 2025.

SOURCES

Thanks to Aaron Goldberg , Jay Cohen, Janet Leader, Rob Pels, and Rosie Pels for their contributions to this article.

Rathke, Lisa. “Long-hidden synagogue mural gets rehabbed.” August 17, 2022. AP Wire story; numerous sources.

Sproston, Betty. Burlington Free Press. February 22, 1995.

https://lostmural.squarespace.com/ekik-lithuania

https://www.news4jax.com/entertainment/2022/08/16/long-hidden-synagogue-mural-gets-rehabbed-relocated/

https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/burlingtons-lost-mural-is-restored-to-its-original-glory/Content?oid=35853053

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/synagogue-mural-restoration-vermont-apartment-180980614/

Bye bye Boomer? Who shall live and who shall die?

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Was it time for us to retire Boomer to that Stuffed Bear Den in the Sky?

A couple of days after our son was born, my husband Larry came to the hospital with a huge brown teddy bear, his first gift to Adam. We named the stuffy “Boomer,” the moniker we had given to my ever expanding stomach during my pregnancy as well as a salute to our Baby Boomer status.

Boomer occupied a place in Adam’s room in our family home through nursery school and beyond When the shiny nose fell off, I sewed on another one with black yarn. When the paws got torn up after too many rides on Adam’s Big Wheels, I covered up the bear’s bare spots with yellow felt patches. On Adam’s first day of kindergarten, we took a picture of Adam holding on to his bear before boarding the school bus.

By his bar mitzvah, Adam relegated Boomer to the top shelf in his bedroom. When Adam headed off to the University of Rochester in 1996, he left his companion behind. [Three years later, our daughter Julie brought her lovey Rerun with her to college. It now has a place of honor on her daughter’s bed.]. We put the brown bear on the pillow on Adam’s bed in the quiet, empty, amazingly clean room. Boomer waited patiently through Adam’s grad school and first jobs and trips across country and to Israel and Belize and law school. Alas, Adam never sent for him.

When we packed up to move to Florida, I sent texts to our children with pictures of the things they left behind with the simple request: “Toss or send to you?” Adam claimed his Star Wars action figures, Zayde Ernie’s World War II helmet, and a couple of framed pictures. Boomer got a thumbs down.

In the end, Larry and I loved Boomer more than Adam did. Larry and I didn’t have the heart to throw Boomer in the trash. After some discussion, we carted him to Kissimmee, where he earned a spot on a bookshelf with our other cherished tchotchkes: Larry’s Otto the Orange mascot, a plush toy I had given him one Chanukah that played the Syracuse University’s marching song when we squeezed his hand. My two 7 inch high dolls in Mexican attire my father had purchased for me at a gift shop in Montreal’s Chinatown after wontons and fortune cookies at the Nan King restaurant; Julie’s doll with the green dress and matching bonnet that had prompted our then-fourteen month old daughter’s first complete sentence on the way back from a shopping trip to buy her a bed: “Oh-oh! Left Baby Bobbie on mattress at Macy’s,” she cried behind me from her car seat. “Go Back!”

I thought Boomer would find his way back home to Adam when our son’s wife Sarah delivered their own little Boomer in 2020. My hopes that I could pack him up in a box and ship him to California were quickly dashed. “I really don’t want it,” Adam told me. “And after 42 years, goodness knows what germs live in that toy! Toss it!”

Taking a good look at Boomer, I almost had to agree with Adam. I took pride in the fact that the black nose and yellow felt paws and feet I had sewn on over forty years ago were still intact. After too many years dealing with Florida humidity, however, the poor stuffed animal was definitely worse for wear.His now graying stuffing was peeking out of his right leg and exploding out of a side seam. His head wobbled, held onto the body with unraveling brown thread. His “fur” had begun to resemble that of a mangy dog. Still, we put him back on the shelf.

Eighteen months later, Boomer’s future was again jeopardy. Larry and I had managed to fit all that was needed for a seven week trip to visit our children in California and Colorado in two medium sized suitcases. If we had survived all summer with so little, why were our closets and drawers still packed with all the clothes we hadn’t bothered to bring?

It wasn’t just the clothes. Despite our purge when we made the move to Florida from Upstate New York in 2015, we (especially me) had somehow again acquired too much stuff. A kitchen full of housewares. Closets filled with unworn clothing. Old books that I was finally going to read while sheltering in place. A two-foot stack of nearly untouched New Yorker magazines. I was ready for a “pandemic purge.” The day before Rosh HaShanah, while looking in my closet to find an outfit for services, I found two dresses that I had not worn in three years. I threw them onto the guest bed. I followed them up with more items to recycle—clothes, linens, books, heavy sweaters I had saved “just in case.” By Yom Kippur, the pile covered the entire double bed. It was a new year, a new start.

But some things were non-recyclable, including a tattered teddy. “Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to Boomer,” I said to Larry.

“No way!” he cried. “Besides, we need to keep him at least until our grandson is able to come to Florida to visit. He has to meet Boomer.”

Larry was right. The idea of putting Boomer into the trash broke both our hearts. I took out my sewing kit, pushed the stuffing back into worn cloth, and stitched him up. We called Adam and Sarah and asked them to mail us a couple of our grandson’s outgrown tee-shirts to cover up all the stitches. And then Boomer will resume his special place on our shelf. Yes, in the end, we couldn’t—forgive the pun—bear to part with him.

There Goes My Heart

The stories on "There Goes My Heart " capture special moments in a lifetime spent in Upstate New York, Florida, Colorado, and beyond.

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The Lost Mural

Bye bye Boomer? Who shall live and who shall die?