Feb 21 2013
By Dasee Berkowitz at 4:02 pm
“Abba, what are those doors up there?”
“I’m not sure, I think it is some kind of a fence.”
“Can we go visit them?”
“No not tonight, sweetie, we are going home now.”
We are driving back from Tzur Hadassah, a suburb of Jerusalem within the Green Line (which separates Israel and the Palestinian territories). The quickest route back into Jerusalem (and into the beds of our two sleepy children) is past Betar Illit and kvish haminharot, the “tunnel road” which connects Jerusalem to the Gush Etzion bloc in the West Bank. Read the rest of this entry →
Dec 20 2012
By Avital Norman Nathman at 9:52 am
We don’t have any toy guns in our house.
Okay, that’s not 100 percent accurate. We have a handful of miniscule, grey, plastic Lego guns so tiny you don’t even notice them until you step–barefoot–upon them, and then you notice them plenty. But they don’t count. They’re not real approximations of guns that can hurt or kill.
I’ve battled with myself over the toy gun issue for years now. When my son was 4 he suddenly picked up an interest in guns. I’m not sure where his intrigue or even knowledge of guns came from. Television and other media was limited to family-friendly shows from PBS and the like, and neither my husband or I are gun enthusiasts or ever felt the need to discuss guns around the house. I may have watched one or two seasons of 24 while nursing my son on the couch in his first few months of life–but I can’t imagine that’s what turned him on to guns… right? Read the rest of this entry →
Dec 17 2012
By Carla Naumburg at 9:45 am
A Huffington Post article that was published over the weekend asked the question that so many of us have been struggling with since the news broke of the school shooting in Newtown, CT: Where were you, God?
Here at Kveller we write a lot about various aspects of raising Jewish children, but it’s not often that we write about God. Perhaps it’s because a belief in God isn’t necessarily a requirement for full participation in the Jewish community, or perhaps it’s because faith and God are such incredibly difficult topics to think about, much less write about in a public forum. Yet when such an unspeakable tragedy occurs, one that left so many of us parents of young children in tears over the weekend, it’s hard to imagine that we weren’t thinking about God. Read the rest of this entry →
Dec 14 2012
By Jordana Horn at 1:51 pm
This morning, I forgot to pack my kids’ lunches and realized it about 10 seconds before we left for school. I slapped peanut butter and jelly on bread like I was on an assembly line, threw it into backpacks, had the kids race into the car and buckle their seatbelts. I yelled a “Love you!” as they clambered out of the car and shut the door behind them, not sure if they heard me.
All over the country, parents had mornings like this.
But this morning in one town in Connecticut, parents dropped off their kids at elementary school and they will never see their 18 children alive again.
I’m writing at a point where facts are still being assembled. I’m sure in the days to come, we’ll find out the names of those involved, the victims, and the murderer. We’ll find out “why” the person did it in stomach-turning articles and TV profiles.
There is no “why” that will ever be adequate. There is no explanation that will suffice for robbing these children of their lives, for robbing these parents of their joy. And the fact that “school shooting” is even in the American lexicon is a disgusting blight on a wonderful country, and we should all be angry and ashamed. Read the rest of this entry →
