My Jewish Stories

Stories I Never Thought I'd Write

Jewish Cemetery in Nørrebro, Copenhagen by Brad Gibson

For most of my life, I thought I had nothing to say about what it meant to be a Jewish. Basically, I felt that all those mid-century, Jewish-American, male authors (Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Joseph Heller, etc.), all of whom I had read, had said whatever there was to say. What did I have to add the conversation? I thought, I’m not even that Jewish, because after all even though my parents were both the first-generation children of Jewish immigrants to the US, I was raised without religion. And then I went and married a goy (a tall, blond, and blue-eyed protestant who came from a small protestant sect that came to America when it was still an English colony).

But the truth was that being Jewish continued to be an essential part of my identity. All four of my grandparents were Ashkenazi Jews from the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire who immigrated to the US in the early twentieth century when they were teenagers. So I grew up in a Jewish family, with Yiddish speaking relatives, and also with the knowledge that before I was born, some of my relatives perished in the Holocaust.

Then, two years ago, I had an experience that completely changed everything. By chance, I had made a reservation for us to stay at an apartment in Copenhagen that had a small balcony overlooking some tall trees. Then, we arrived, I found that the fifth-floor apartment in the Nørrebro neighborhood overlooked a beautiful, old Jewish cemetery from the 17th century. After exploring the cemetery, I was left with many questions, and answers to those questions led to more questions, until I had became so possessed with everything I was learning about Jewish history that I had to start writing it all down (see Jewish Questions ).

Even then I didn't set out to write a collection of stories about being Jewish. I was just following my inspiration when it struck me. And I discovered that I had stories to tell, both fictional and true, that were completely different from those of the mid-century authors I read when I was growing up. Here are the stories I have written so far, with links to where you can read them:

Stories on the Jewish Writing Project

Displaced People: A memorable experience a Jewish American soldier had after World War II in occupied Germany.

Tzipa: Why I have a Hebrew name, the tragic story of the woman I was named after, and what the name means to me now.

Jewish Questions: After visiting a Jewish Cemetery in Copenhagen and the Jewish Museums in Copenhagen and Seville, Spain, I dug into Jewish history in attempt to understand why visiting those places caused such strong emotions for me.

One of Job’s Daughters: An upsetting incident on the street triggers reflections about how some non-Jewish men see Jewish women.

Stories on the Delusiastic! Blog

Five Silver Dollars: My memories of the first and only Hannukah my family ever celebrated.

The Legacy: The story of a Jewish American woman who is haunted by the ghost of her grandmother.

Rags to Riches: A woman who finds a doll that was created by a Jewish cartoonist, which she hated when she was a child.

A Baby Grand and a Room Full of Books: What a Jewish father and his non-Jewish son-in-law have in common.

Now That I'm No Longer American: A satire (I have to say this because some people thought it was a true story) about the implications of a Trump administration ruling that "Judaism" is a nationality.