On a recent Monday, while the Pianist was inside looking at art, I was sitting in a chair in front of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. A good spot to catch up with the Sunday New York Times book review section. There, on page 9, was a [...]

Rachel Maddow’s podcast, “Ultra, Season 2,” tells the story of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt, who took his own life in 1954. I was not aware of this tragic chapter in America’s political history, which is a reminder of the destructive power wielded by Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy. McCarthy did [...]

I never expected the word “antisemitism” to rear its ugly head openly in America. But recent years have defied expectations, and we now see entertainers, professional athletes, and elected officials expressing Jew hatred with hardly any rhetorical camouflage. All of us should be outraged. Growing up in Claremont, I [...]

1. Prologue Chaim and Ruchele Feldman, brother and sister, were born a long time ago in Derechin, a small village which was then in Poland, now Western Belarus. Their mother’s maiden name was Bernstein, and their uncle, Isaac Bernstein, left Derechin for America sometime before 1900. He became a [...]

My grandfather Steinfield, for whom I am named, died in Claremont on December 12, 1911. He is buried in Adath Israel Cemetery in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. My grandmother Steinfield died on October 23, 1943, more than ten years before Claremont acquired land on North Street for a Jewish cemetery. [...]

When I was nine, I went to Camp Arcadia in Maine, and I went back the next two summers. You could sign up for various activities, and although I would happily have spent all my time playing baseball, I took riflery and learned how to shoot. I got my [...]

If there’s one rule that most of us can get behind, it’s the Golden Rule—"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Matthew 7:12). Its Old Testament counterpart is “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18). Whichever version you prefer, the period during which we are [...]

When I was 16, I worked as a counselor at Camp Holiday Trail in Hillsborough Upper Village. The Head Counselor, Ken, and the Waterfront Director, Bob, were both several years older than I. They were smooth New York sophisticates, while I was a naïve Claremont teenager. Ken told us [...]

Today is the last Tuesday of February, and I came perilously close—like 24 hours—to blowing the deadline for this month’s column. These 28-day months can sneak up on you, and the next thing you know you’re checking outside for lions or lambs. But I got a year older recently, [...]

This book review originally appeared in the February 2022 issue of The New Hampshire Jewish Reporter. ------ People Love Dead Jews, by Dara Horn (W.W. Norton & Co., 2021) In the final paragraph of this profound collection of essays, Dara Horn dedicates the book to her four children, with [...]