When I walk through the sliding glass doors to Heritage House, a Jewish senior center in Columbus, Ohio, there is a specific odor that tickles the small hairs on the inside of my nose. The scent makes me dread coming to this place; it is the smell of death and decay. My grandmother, Miriam, who I have forever called Mommo, lives in room 250 at the end of the beige hallway. She is eighty-six, looks seventy-two and is legally blind.
"They want me to die in this?" she says, her grip tight around her walker as we tour the building. "You do know, honey, this is the last stop before Epstein?s (the Jewish funeral home on Main Street)."
I recently came back from Egypt. I had never been to a Muslim country before and I hate to say it but the images I'd seen on television had made me a bit nervous. After a couple days, the pictures from the Media disappeared and I no longer felt uncomfortable around men in traditional religious clothing or the one or two women on the street, hidden behind veils. With speakers on the sidewalks filling the streets with religious chants, I soon became accustomed to how the city sounded during time of prayer. I started to wonder if there were people living in Egypt whom, like me, felt torn between maintaining religious traditions and living the life they want? Are there people of my generation who want traditions to change? Around this time, close after the New Year, the resolutions made beforehand tend to fade back into the routine of daily life. No matter if resolutions are met, the effort itself for things to change fills us with hope. Whatever the wish, the one ingredient for a New Year is change. It seems we always want to change something about the way we live. The role of religion for the secular
Is it okay to tell a lie to repair a relationship? This is a question I have been struggling with for a couple months now. Where does the question come from? Well, as you may have gathered in my previous posts, my grandmother and I have different views on what it means to be Jewish.
Although we both feel it necessary to preserve the Jewish faith, the way in which we go about it is different.
At the moment, I am dating a non-Jew. Because I am dating a non-Jew, my grandmother is not a happy camper. Don't get me wrong; I definitely understand where my grandmother is coming from. If I do not date a Jew it is more likely that I won't marry a Jew. And if I don't marry a Jew my children are less likely to remain Jewish.
Statistically, this is true. The National Jewish Population Survey found that only a third of interfaith couples raise their children Jewish and are less likely to involve themselves in Jewish activities.
"Have you met any nice Jewish boys over in Spain?" she asks me over the phone.
"No, grandma. I haven't met anyone."
