This Sunday is Father’s Day, and while our gift to dads came a little early this year (you do remember Dude Week, don’t you?!) we wanted to do a little something special to honor this holiday otherwise filled with new ties and tools.

The dads who have written for Kveller over our internet-life-span have been brave spokesmen in the land of so many moms, and we greatly value what they add to the mix, so we wanted to send out a big THANKS! and WE LOVE YOU! If you recall, our Mother’s Day montage was quite a bit more full, so we hope you take this virtual Father’s Day card as a certain call to action–we always, always want more dads writing for us and interacting with us on the site.

Happy Father’s Day, dads, and everyone else.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Dads, Father's Day

All this week, we’re featuringstories of great fathers collected by the Jewish Women’s Archive in honor of Father’s Day. We’ll be featuring the last two today. This first one is from Preeva Tramiel:

My father chose my name, and that cemented my connection to Judaism. He named me after his mother, Pruva, who died in Auschwitz. The “American” version of my name is Preeva, and it is on my birth certificate. Daddy took to me shul on Friday nights, and we came early so he could talk to his friends and show me off a little. He would say, “Preeva, explain your name.” And I would straighten my dress, and recite: “When God created man, on the sixth day he said to him, Pru U’Rvu Ee melu et ha’aretz, be fruitful and multiply and develop the earth. From that comes Pruva, which we pronounce here in America, Preeva.” Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Dads, Father's Day

Father’s Day is this Sunday, and we thought you’d like this short and sweet poem, from one father to his son.

When you fall asleep on my arm you make it ten times stronger.

When you lie on my chest it becomes a mountain.

When you wrap your hand around my finger no army in the universe can dislodge us.

I am father: giant, impenetrable, invincible, timeless, ageless, all seeing; cunning, determined, and when protecting you, utterly ruthless.

This is who I am now; this is what you have made me.

So my son, thank you for this first Father’s Day.

Love,

Dad

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Dads, Father's Day, poetry

All this week, we’re featuring stories of great fathers collected by the Jewish Women’s Archive in honor of Father’s Day. Today’s is from Ellen K. Rothman.

One night when my father was about 10 years old, he came downstairs looking for his mother. He paused at the top of the cellar steps. In the basement, he saw his parents and his maternal grandfather savoring a local delicacy–Chesapeake Bay oysters. In later years, my father would say that this night in 1933 marked the end of any real feeling he had for Judaism. He loved and respected his grandfather, a successful self-made businessman who was a pillar of the shul where my father would be bar mitzvahed and confirmed. But even as a 10-year-old, he knew hypocrisy when he saw it.

Still, my father never failed to make a generous contribution to the Associated Jewish Charities every year, he was famous for his skill at telling Jewish jokes, and without ever using the words, he instilled a strong sense of tikkun olam in his sons (two) and daughters (two). Did he make the connection between the importance he placed on service to the community–a value he both lived and passed on–and his Jewish heritage? I wish I had asked him.

To read more, head on over to JWA’s blog, Jewesses with Attitude.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Dads, Father's Day, kosher

All this week, we’re featuring stories of great fathers collected by the Jewish Women’s Archive in honor of Father’s Day. Today’s is from Deborah Fineblum Raub.

“What do you think is the nature of reality?”

I gazed down at my untied shoelace, my skinned knee, the grass poking out of the sidewalk. “I dunno,” I shrugged. “What is it?”

“There is no right answer,” my father said, his corrective shoes keeping time with my own. “But it’s our job to keep asking the question anyway.” My Daddy knows a lot, but that did not make sense. Questions should have right answers like in arithmetic.

What l did know was it was summertime. I was 7. I had 27 freckles and two little sisters and Mommy was wearing the blue shirt again that meant another sister was coming. And after supper Daddy asked just me to take a walk. In the soft Ohio dusk I was initiated into the Big Thinkers Club. That fundamentally unanswerable “nature of reality” question, one that would eventually be posed to each of his five small daughters, gifted us with the chutzpah to shake our small fists at the limits of human knowing in a deeply Jewish way. It was, more than anything else, our father’s sweetest gift.

To read more, head on over to JWA’s blog, Jewesses with Attitude.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Dads, Father's Day

Sarah and her dad.

With Father’s Day coming up this weekend, we’ve partnered with the Jewish Women’s Archive to start a dialogue about Jewish fathers, and the non-Jewish fathers raising Jewish daughters. They asked women to share their own stories of their fathers, and we’ll be cross-posting a new one each day this week.

To kick us off, here is a story from our very own Sarah Tuttle-Singer:

My Episcopalian dad proposed to my Jewish mom on their very first date over Irish Coffee and she laughed at him. But, my dad had charm, and she agreed to go out with him again. And again. And again. And over the next eight years when he’d ask her to marry him night after night, she would shake her head and laugh. But then, one night, while stuck in traffic on the 405 Freeway near the Wilshire Exit, she said “Yes.” But with one condition: They would have a Jewish home.” And my dad agreed. Every Friday night, we lit candles for Shabbat. He went to Torah class with our rabbi. We kept Kosher. And my dad’s love for my mom allowed me to grow up in a home where I grew up loving Judaism.

To read more, head on over to JWA’s blog, Jewesses with Attitude.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Dads, Father's Day, Interfaith

Me with my beloved Misha.

In honor of Father’s Day, here’s one mother’s ode to her dad–a fond memory from her own childhood:

For my oldest son it was a yellow blankie and a stuffed Baby Elmo doll. For my middle son, it’s a Winnie-the-Pooh puppet that my mother sewed onto a blanket and that he carried everywhere until, today, Pooh only has a few loose strings hanging off him. For my youngest daughter, it’s a lamb’s head attached to a fuzzy body that she not only sleeps with, but puts on her boo-boos to make them feel better.

For me, it was a black bear whose limbs kind of moved, with glass eyes, a yarn mouth, and a nose where the fuzz was already staring to come off.

Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Dads, Father's Day, featured, lovey

Our baby will definitely be a fan of the opera.

Psst. Father’s Day is coming up on June 17th. In preparation for this joyous occasion, here’s an interesting perspective from a first-time-father-to-be.

I’ve been singing to my wife’s stomach lately and oddly enough, this doesn’t feel too strange. As Yael enters her third trimester and her beautiful belly bursts, I find myself looking for ways to stay involved in her growing process. I’m reading books and hearing stories, wondering all the while: does all this really prepare me for the epic change we’re about to experience? Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Pregnancy
• Tags: birthing class, Dads, Father's Day, pregnancy

Father’s Day is coming up fast, and we’ve just caught wind of an exciting project from the ladies at the Jewish Women’s Archive that’s all about dads. Your dads, specifically.

For their blog, Jewesses With Attitude, JWA is collecting short blurbs from Jewish women about their fathers, and the role they played in their Jewish identity and development. They also want to add some dad voices to the blog, so they’re seeking guest posts from Jewish fathers, or fathers raising Jewish children. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Dads, Father's Day, jewish women's archive, writing

Not my husband or my kid, but these guys are clearly bonding.

As a mom, you have a special relationship with your children. After all, you do carry them inside of you for 40 weeks (41, in my case). Those months of uterine massage (read: constant kicking) sure does make you love them. Or simply want them out out OUT!

One of the things my husband remembers best from our childbirth education class was that the instructor recommended that the father get to hold the baby, alone, for at least 10 minutes that first day. To help them bond. Dan thought it was kind of silly. Why wouldn’t he bond with his baby? But he did get those 10 minutes (and more, even) just a few minutes after our daughter was born.

Abigail has always loved her daddy, but I’m a stay-at-home mom (that is, besides the time when I’m working from home). Which means that I spend most of my time with our daughter, and it’s definitely strengthened our bond. But a few weeks back I went to a conference for three days, which was my first time away from her. And though she loves her babysitter, she didn’t love three straight days of babysitter. I got text messages from my husband that said things like, “Dress shirt covered in tears and snot.” Seems that there was some serious crying every morning when the babysitter showed up.

But when I came home, Abigail greeted me with happiness and I figured everything was just fine.

Until the next day, when she tripped and fell, and instead of wanting Mama to comfort her, she screamed for Daddy. I even tried and was told, “No! Want Dada!” Yeah. That’s a game changer.

So Happy Father’s Day, honey. I guess those first 10 minutes really did make a difference. And even though our daughter might love you a little more than me these days, I’m still going to let you sleep late on Sunday. (So keep that in mind when you’re doing the early shift on Shabbat morning!)

• Posted in Baby & Toddler
• Tags: Dads, Father's Day, friday night, shabbat