Jewish Word | Chaver: Friend or Lover?
“What are we, exactly?”
Beshert | Inside Our Gates
Josh and I met in Jerusalem, just outside the Jaffa Gate. He was a tour guide before COVID-19 brought the tourist trade shuddering to a...
Beshert | Crushing on Leonard Nimoy
It was 1970 and “Star Trek” had just ended on TV. Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock, the hybrid human-alien, had a young fan in...
Beshert | “I Get It.”
I’ve always been super confident in most things but faltered when it came to dating and love. I was looking for ease and perfection. And,...
Beshert | Finding My Own Kind
My Grandma Phyllis always told me to “Stick to your own kind” when it came to dating. But to her disappointment, I’d never dated another...
Beshert | My Two Bundles of Meant-To-Be
I always wanted to be somebody’s mother. Since I was six, I would fantasize about holding my baby, dressing her and loving her. I shared...
Beshert | This Isn’t What I Ordered
"I dreamed of certain outcomes. But it’s the ones I didn’t see coming that feel exactly right—beshert."
Gen Z Meets Dr. Ruth
What does Dr Ruth, a 91-year-old sex therapist who seems to have done it all have to say to a 22-year-old who grew up with little to no sexual taboos?
Beshert | The Song of Our Lives
Then I saw her. Across the crowded room. Dancing alone in a red dress. It wasn’t just her beauty. It was a spirit emanating from her being. I approached her and we talked a bit. I found out her name was Rusti. Enchanting. But she was swarmed by other boys—she was beautiful, talented and smart.
Nevertheless, when I returned to my fraternity house that night, I told my brothers that I would marry her. It was love at first sight.
Beshert | Once Upon a Time in Montevideo…
I met my husband in a hotel lobby in Montevideo, Uruguay on my 27th birthday. We were browsing the lobby stores because the hotel’s only...
Beshert | He Had Me At Lunch
The man had just eaten the lunch of Jewish champions. There went my heart quandary; he embodied the simplest and best parts of being Jewish. With that one “lunch,” I realized he was the perfect Jew for me.
Beshert | Bonded by the Bard
“Was that your friend Bill Shakespeare?” my youngest son, Alex, then six, asks after my husband, Steve, hangs up the phone.
If that seems like a crazy question from a child, it was par for the course in my household, because it was words that wooed me, words that won me, and words that keep us – the entire family – in thrall.
From the very beginning, in fact.