Clean your file cabinets for Passover: Yet another piece of wacky advice from yours truly

March 30, 2014April 4, 2014beccakinla advice, authors, revision, submissions, submit, success, writer, writing, writing groups, writing process Tags: clean, discard, discover, discovery, file, file cabinet, finish, hunt, improve, lost, marketable, metzia, missing, Passover, passover cleaning, Pesach, pesach cleaning, purge, revise, revisit, sale, submission, success, writer, writing Leave a comment

So, in the Klempner household, preparations for Pesach — Passover — are in full swing. We’re vacuuming and scrubbing the house, the car, and the van like crazy. I’m muttering things like, “Why do I let them eat in carpool?” and “How do you get cookie crumbs in sock drawers?” under my breath.

Photo by Pptudela and available through Wikipedia Commons

One of my favorite parts of Pesach cleaning is finding things you’ve lost: the missing token from a game you’ve been wanting to play on rainy days, spare change, receipts for purchases you’ve been meaning to return, missing socks.

I’m not suggesting you pull out the 409 and start scrubbing down your file cabinets (although, if a toddler has access to its drawers, it might be a good idea). I’m suggesting that you flip through some old stories — ones you discarded incomplete, or complete but not yet ready for prime time viewing — and revisit them.

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Writing for Children: not for those who want glory, fame, or big bucks

March 25, 2014beccakinla chareidi, children, children's books, inyan magazine, Jewish, Jewish writing, joy, Judaism, kindness, klempner, kosher, love, magazines, message, Orthodox, persistence, picture books, publishing, recommended reading, respect, stories, students, success, tafkid, teens, writing Tags: audience, children, classroom, dignity, don't give up, fame, fishel schachter, goal, kavod, keep going, kids, maggid, motivation, persistence, prestige, rabbi, Rabbi Schachter, respect, school, stories, story, storyteller, storytelling, student, tafkid, visit, weekly Torah portion, work, writing 3 Comments

Last week’s Hamodia/Inyan Magazine had an article by one of my favorite columnists, Rabbi Fishel Schachter entitled “Guided by Tale Winds.” While today Rabbi Schachter is well-known in the Torah world for essays and presentations for adults about the weekly Torah portion, parenting, and other subjects, he first gained popularity as a rebbi and storyteller to students in Jewish day schools.

Rabbi Schachter explains in the article that one of the adults in his audience told him many years ago that he had to choose between teaching grown-ups or kids — and he indicated that the natural choice for a man of Rabbi Schachter’s talent and intelligence was to teach adults.

Turning to his own rebbi for guidance, Rabbi Schachter asked if teaching kids was really beneath him? Were all the silly voices and so on undermining his stature?

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Passover looming ahead: Not quite panicking yet

March 23, 2014beccakinla Jewish, Jewish writing, literature, los angeles, magazines, newpapers, newspaper, Orthodox, serial, teens Tags: 2014, 5774, action, binah, binah between, Binah Bunch, children, interview, jew, jewish, judaism, kids, Klempner, literature, Menucha Publishers, new, orthodox, Passover, Pesach, picture books, rebecca klempner, serial, suspense, teens, tweens, Tzivia Erlich-Klein Leave a comment

Due to the onslaught of housework, etc., that Pesach entails, as well as some nifty work assignments, I’ll be posting less for the next month or so. However, I do want to share with my readers several bits of good news: Continue reading →

4 Questions for author Tamar Ansh about her new Passover cookbook

March 17, 2014March 3, 2014beccakinla book, books, children, children's books, Jewish, Jewish writing, Judaism, kids, kosher, literature, parenting, parents Tags: 2014, advice, author, book, children, cookbook, interview, jewish, kids, new, Passover, Pesach, preparation, recipes, Tamar Ansh Leave a comment

I recently conversed via email with the enormously popular author, Tamar Ansh, about her new cookbook. Let My Children Cook! is her first cookbook for kids, and it tackles a particularly pertinent area of Kosher cuisine for this time of year: Passover.

Tamar Ansh’s latest cookbook, out in time for Passover!

4 Questions:

Rebecca:

What made you want to write a cookbook for children this time? And why specifically one for Passover?

Tamar:

For this book, Let My Children Cook!, Hashem sent me the inspiration from a totally unexpected angle. Continue reading →

My completely unsolicited review of “Megillas Lester”

March 13, 2014March 23, 2014beccakinla family, fantasy, frum, good news, humor, Jewish, Judaism, kids, kosher, new, online, Orthodox, purim, review, reviews Tags: chananiah kramer, entertainment, film, funny, holiday, jew, jewish, judaism, kolrom, kosher, megillah, megillas lester, megillat esther, movie, purim, purimspiel, recommend, recommendation, review, spiel, streaming, video, vimeo 7 Comments

After all my recent ranting and raving about Esther in pop culture, I watched a video this afternoon with the husband and kids that made me feel better. I’d first heard about it on Tablet, then on the OU’s website.

Megillas Lester–a hilarious film in the Purim Spiel tradition.

Kolrom media, who has produced a lot of music videos and shorts for the Orthodox audience (like the video for the song “Ana Avda” and a hilarious bit on Aish.com called “Sicko” about how NOT to do the mitzvah of visiting the sick), has just released a video about Purim that refers to all the midrashim and commentaries I talked about in my rant. And it’s funny. Although Esther doesn’t make an appearance. Even Mordechai barely shows up.

That’s because “Megillas Lester” is about a boy, Lester, who dreams he has messed up the Purim story so much that Esther doesn’t have a chance to become queen. And Mordechai doesn’t get a chance to save the king. So who will save the Jewish people from Haman’s evil plot? Continue reading →

My rant against depictions of Queen Esther in popular art and literature.

March 12, 2014March 12, 2014beccakinla comments, esther, Orthodox, purim Tags: accuracy, book, commentaries, commentary, esther, gemara, Hadassah, King Saul, pastor, persia, purim, queen, Queen Esther, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, real, research, sermon, Tablet, talmud, true, unmasked 1 Comment

Tablet has an article up about the popularization of Queen Esther among Christians. It gave me the willies. Not because of the article’s writer, but because of what she was describing.

While some of the pastors describing Esther’s commitment to fulfilling G-d’s will get it right, clearly, the majority of these authors and pastors have not read a single commentary on Esther. Normally, that wouldn’t bother me (because why should a Christian have to do so) but they completely and totally distort the story for their own purposes. Why would you write something without doing research? Traditional commentaries (easily obtainable in English) describe an Esther completely different than how she’s being depicted in pop culture. Continue reading →

Rebecca Klempner

Author page of Rebecca Klempner

Month: March 2014

Clean your file cabinets for Passover: Yet another piece of wacky advice from yours truly

Writing for Children: not for those who want glory, fame, or big bucks

Passover looming ahead: Not quite panicking yet

4 Questions for author Tamar Ansh about her new Passover cookbook

4 Questions:

Rebecca:

Tamar:

My rant against depictions of Queen Esther in popular art and literature.

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4 Questions:

Rebecca:

Tamar:

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