Today’s news, hate filled words,, lies and contempt, images of cruel, violent acts, wound my heart, wound each of our hearts. They evoke yearning… longing for justice, truth, goodness. Faint echoes of Johnny Cash’s song When the Man Comes Around seep into my mind. He...
“Abraham and the Three Angels” by Marc Chagall | 1966 Three Jews, connected by heritage, separated by history, linked by their responses to a radical call…to trust, to rely on their Lord. Abraham left his family, his culture not knowing his destination and look what...
The Place of Departure. Looking at the train track, Köln-Deutz railway station, April 11, 2010. Have you ever felt surrounded by inner and outer darkness and suddenly, you glimpse a light? It is both Passover and Holy Week as I write, and I’m remembering the past, the...
Deracinate /dēˈrasəˌnāt/ verb Definition: Uproot someone from their natural geographical, social, or cultural environment. A word in popular usage 200 years ago. George and I spent yesterday morning at the Desert Botanical Garden here in Phoenix. It is the season of...
“The first celebration of Purim” Purim 2022 March 16 and 17 Purim, the Jewish feast celebrates deliverance from certain death 2,500 years ago, in Persia, present day Iran. Haman, villainous enemy of the Jewish people, plots their destruction and is thwarted by...
1938 The year is 1938 and we had just been expelled from the local Protestant schools in Gemünd and Schleiden. The Jewish community scrambled to create a one room school in Kall installing Moses Fernbach as teacher. I remembered a photograph of our new school in...
Hanna Zack Miley holding her autobiography, A Garland For Ashes The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27, 2022 marking the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, is One Day. Yesterday, 13th January, Amy Williams invited me to join historian, Professor Bill Niven...
Jewish Remembrance week Görlitz, 2021 Görlitz to Phoenix via Birmingham Boxing Day 2021 Today I’m mending a little wooden train engine and carriage that arrived uncoupled from its secure place attached to a Christmas tree. Yesterday, Christmas Day, I discovered a...
“The Yellow Crucifixion” by Mark Chagall being viewed at The Contemporary Art Center of Landerneau (photo by Fred Tanneau) Marc Chagall 1887 – 1985 Marc Chagall’s fascination with Jesus and the Cross intrigues me. After all he was a shtetl Jew, born in Vitebsk,...
The 4711 sign today in Köln, Germany Köln, Germany 1939 We parted at Köln Hauptbahnhof. The date was Monday, July 24th 1939 in the evening. I didn’t realize it would be our last goodbye. I remember looking up at the giant 4711 sign high above us. After all these...
