Tag: grandfather

I recently received an envelope from Belgium, with legal documents informing me that I was found eligible to receive Holocaust compensation. I saw this as a symbolic rectification of a bitter injustice that seemed to represent the very essence of my life. As I flipped through the pages, my mind wandered back to my childhood.

Finding a classmate has never been easier, with online tools rekindling long-lost childhood friendships. For those whose last school exams took place more than 70 years ago, only to be followed by the ravages of the Holocaust, a long-distance reunion leads to an outpouring of emotion.

Last month, I took a quick, five-day trip to the Unites States to visit my grandfather at the Miami Jewish Home and Hospital, an assisted living facility in North Miami Beach where he is (hopefully) recovering from several strokes. While I was pleasantly surprised by the generosity shown to my grandfather by complete strangers (staff members and volunteers) and the extreme emotions exhibited by our family's usually unflappable patriarch, I was simply stunned by my own feelings toward the "Old Country."

This is the final cleaning phase and your vacuum cleaner is going to be running all week long! Go over all the bedrooms, living spaces, offices, the dining room, kitchen - every possible area that needs to be vacuumed.

Late last year, I was flying from Los Angeles to San Jose - a trip I have made many times in the course of my professional career. Over the years, I have watched the San Jose airport transform itself - from a one-building terminal with rental cars parked on the curb to an international airport with rental car facilities much larger than the entire airport I first visited many years ago.

From the moment that our eyes met and locked on Friday, at the first lecture that I gave at the retreat organized by the EJSN (European Jewish Study Network) in Davos, Switzerland, I sensed that we would be speaking more throughout the weekend.

From the moment that our eyes met and locked on Friday, at the first lecture that I gave at the retreat organized by the EJSN (European Jewish Study Network) in Davos, Switzerland, I sensed that we would be speaking more throughout the weekend.

When I was invited a few months ago to lecture at a European retreat in Davos, Switzerland, that was hosted in the same luxury venue where the world economic leaders (including former president Bill Clinton) had met for their own economic summit a few years ago, I knew there was no way I'd refuse. The resort weekend was organized by Rabbi Sholom Liberow, director of the European Jewish Study Network (EJSN) and his wonderful wife, Leah.

When I was invited a few months ago to lecture at a European retreat in Davos, Switzerland, that was hosted in the same luxury venue where the world economic leaders (including former president Bill Clinton) had met for their own economic summit a few years ago, I knew there was no way I'd refuse. The resort weekend was organized by Rabbi Sholom Liberow, director of the European Jewish Study Network (EJSN) and his wonderful wife, Leah.

I see him now in my mind's eye. He is sitting at his desk in his office at The Jewish Press, a Gemara open before him, other scholarly tomes on the side, engaged in what he loved best: learning Torah.

"It's part of our history," author Ron Arons told The Jewish Press. "Just to say we have hundreds of Nobel Prize winners ignores the fact that we have problems too."

In one of his thousands of aphorism-filled columns for The Jewish Press, Dr. Morris Mandel wrote, "Counting time is not as important as making time count."

Though the prices of airline tickets to Israel had soared with the increase in the cost of fuel this summer, my son Moshe was determined to visit his ailing grandfather in Jerusalem.

I recently interviewed a grandfather who was a former well spouse.

Little Lizzy is dusting her mom's antiques store and Grandpa's snoozing head when a pink and piqued Mrs. Larchmont strides inside the shop.

Readers will fall in love with the captivating illustrations and the healthy emotions shared by a grandfather and granddaughter in lap-sized Grandfather's Wrinkles.

Since I started writing this column I have been inundated with questions from my readers about various shtetlach. Often the places mentioned are well-known cities and, possibly, places I have visited.

Whereas Salek's father's appearance was rather modern for that period - sporting only a short beard, just like his cousins - his grandfather, Avrohom Orenstein, had a flowing beard and wore a shtreimel on Shabbos.

Wishes For one More Day is about the wish of two young grandchildren to spend one more day with a beloved grandparent who has passed away in order to say a proper goodbye.

Recently the Jewish cemetery at Wysokie Mazowiecie held a ceremony marking the first stage of its restoration project.

Much ink and money has been spilt over the topic of "hip Judaism".

Much of childhood is spent in illusion. We grow up imagining things not as they are, but as we wish them to be.

I just got off the phone with my oldest grandson. He is four.

Parshas Ki Tavo has come and gone. The tochacha - the curses - were read in our synagogues, but who was listening? Who heard them? If you were among those who did listen, the words had to have a chilling, eerie effect. Alas, they were not far-fetched predictions, but had an all-too familiar ring. We are the generation that can vividly recall the Holocaust. We are the generation that lives with the constant nightmare of yet more carnage. It is with trepidation that we tune into the news from Israel. Who and what will be next?