Oct 10 2012
By Jordana Horn at 12:30 pm
My due date is tomorrow.
I remember those halcyon days when I was pregnant with my first child in New York. I left work a month early to “get ready.” Since I had no kids, “getting ready,” entailed long lunches with friends and family, museum visits to exhibits I’d read about in the New York Times, and putting together a registry that included now-banned items like crib bumpers. Livin’ la vida loca! I was so excited to give birth. “ANY DAY NOW!” I’d excitedly chirp to doormen, shopkeepers, and random pedestrians. Read the rest of this entry →
Sep 21 2012
By Kveller at 4:11 pm
If you’re in the New York area and have young children, you’ll definitely want to check out these upcoming free events at the Museum of Jewish Heritage that are part of their New Families, New Traditions series. They’re especially geared towards families with children under 3, and feature puppets, music and storytelling galore!
All events are at the museum at 36 Battery Place New York, NY 10004. For more information, email family@mjhnyc.org or call 646.437.4202. Reservations are not needed.
Sunday, September 23, 10:30 A.M.
Days of Awe-Some New Year Celebration
Join Jacob Stein and The Bakery Band Puppet Players to welcome 5773 with songs and stories.
Jacob Stein is the musical director of the Jewish Community Project in Lower Manhattan, and his Bim Bom Musicfest Class is now in its seventh year. Read the rest of this entry →
Aug 28 2012
By Kveller at 4:39 pm
For New York families with special needs kids, we’ve just got word of a great Rosh Hashanah service that you might want to check out.
Congregation Rodeph Sholom on the Upper West Side is offering a Rosh Hashanah celebration for families with special needs. On Tuesday, September 18th from 11 a.m. to noon, join the Rodeph Sholom family for an interactive service open to the entire community–members and non-members, all ages welcome. There will be singing, instruments, apples and honey (and a variety of other healthy and tasty snacks), and of course, the shofar! Read the rest of this entry →
Aug 16 2012
By Jordana Horn at 2:08 pm
Karl Taro Greenfeld is a half-Japanese, half-Jewish writer whose work has taken him around the world in many ways. He was managing editor of TIME Asia, editor of Sports Illustrated and is the author of two books about Asia. Triburbia is his first foray into fiction, and is a Dubliners-esque portrait of a city–New York and specifically TriBeCa–through its people and parents. In the well-written series of stories that somehow all coalesce into a novel, parents learn how to parent by doing and kids learn how to torment one another much as the adults involved torment themselves. Greenfeld took time to do a Q&A with Kveller’s Jordana Horn about the transition from journalism to fiction, nightmares of parenting, and books with pink covers.
Your book is an ensemble piece of sorts, focusing on various parents in TriBeCa. What made you–a journalist who’s written extensively on Asia–take on this particular subject? Read the rest of this entry →
Aug 1 2012
By Dawn Siff at 2:02 pm
If you’re really thinking about it and not just squawking to be quoted, you’re going to have mixed feelings about New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s new push to get more women to breastfeed. Starting in September, 27 of the city’s 40 baby-delivering hospitals will begin to keep formula under lock and key, meaning they will only provide it to moms who request it or need it for a medical reason. Moms who do request formula will reportedly get a lecture about why breast is best.
Much of the debate has centered on, “How dare the city tell me how to feed my child?” And that might normally be me, but in this case, my first thought was, “Oh good, now maybe the hospitals will stop pushing formula.” Because believe me, they do. Any new mom can tell you that. How can they not? The entire maternity ward experience is practically “Brought you by Enfamil and Similac.” My impression: The formula companies have been so cozy with the hospitals for so long I’m waiting for them to sell naming rights to the maternity wings. Read the rest of this entry →
Jun 29 2012
By Adina Kay-Gross at 12:56 pm
My parents (like many, many Jewish parents before them) are partial to telling me that things happen for a reason (or more accurately, that just about everything is bashert). So it was no surprise that following the heartache of finding a house we liked, signing what we thought was a binding contract and then discovering that the sellers hadn’t actually signed and instead went with another deal, my parents comforted me by saying that this house wasn’t meant to be, and that our bashert house was just waiting for us to find it. Read the rest of this entry →
Jun 28 2012
By Jordana Horn at 2:44 pm
Full disclosure: I’ve never been an Elmo fan. I didn’t especially like him when I first met him on my television screen–he seemed too relentlessly happy, too sure that I would care “what he’s thinking about today.” He made me think about throwing shoes at the television. My boys, of course, loved him. They watched Elmo constantly during the most harrowing time of my life–my year-long divorce. When I hear that red guy’s high cloying voice, to this day, it makes me shudder.
So I’ll admit that, in a weird way, I felt slightly vindicated when I found out Elmo was a recidivist racist. Okay, fine, it wasn’t the REAL Elmo. I mean, to the extent any Elmo is real, of course. Racist Elmo is not the one with the ™ symbol next to his name, the legitimate Elmo. No, racist Elmo is one of the illegitimate Elmos. New York has a bunch of Elmos (and other characters with sidewalk child appeal) who wander around tourist sites to pose for photos with kids and make some quick non-taxable cash. Read the rest of this entry →
Jun 19 2012
By Alina Adams at 3:59 pm
If my life had followed the statistically expected trajectory, after leaving the Soviet Union in 1976, my family would have settled in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, home of the United States’ largest Russian-Jewish community. (It’s also very possible that I might have gone to Stuyvesant High School and thus met my husband about 15 years earlier. When, we both agree, I wouldn’t have given him the time of day. But, that’s another story for another time.)
We didn’t, though. We ended up in San Francisco, CA, instead. I stayed in California until the last week of 1994, whereupon I finally packed up and relocated to New York City. But, to Manhattan, not Brooklyn. Read the rest of this entry →
May 9 2012
By Kveller at 12:27 pm
Shabbat is a very good thing, but all good things must come to an end, right? Luckily for us, even the end to Shabbat comes with some pretty great traditions. The havdalah ceremony brings Shabbat to a close each week, and is filled with special prayers, songs, and fragrant spices to pass around and smell.
For our New York readers who live in Westchester, we’ve just heard of a great opportunity for you to get the whole family geared up for havdalah. J-Baby, an exciting new program through the Rosenthal JCC of Northern Westchester, is hosting a “Plant Your Own Havdalah Spice Set” party in Yorktown Heights. It’s a great hands-on opportunity to plant herbs to take home for havdalah and beyond, and you can meet other young Jewish families while you’re at it. Hope you can make it! Here are the details:
Plant Your Own Havdalah Spice Set
Friday, May 18, 9:30-11 AM
Takes place at FDR Park, Picnic tables at parking Lot #2
Stay right at fork for .8 miles, 2957 Crompound Rd., Yorktown Heights
$5/family, RSVP to cathy@roenthaljcc.org
Feb 22 2012
By Kveller at 2:03 pm
Dear Kveller Readers Outside of New York:
I know. You’re tired of me writing about all of the amazing things that happen in New York City for kids. The thing is, it’s really hard not to tell our New York readers about great programs when they’re happening right here in our backyard. So I’ll make a deal with you–tell me about the awesome programs happening in your neck of the woods, and I’ll write about them too, so you don’t feel left out. Meanwhile, the rest of this is for the New Yorkers. Sorry!
Dear New York Kveller readers,
Ignore that note above–we all know that NYC is the center of the universe for everything, Jewish parenting included. After all, that’s why our Kveller offices are here. Read the rest of this entry →
