A possible student for my workshop?
Audience: Ladies ages 15 and up are welcome to participate.
Date:May 25th
Time:10 am – 1 pm
Location:Private home in L.A.
Cost:$25, $18 if you refer a friend and they also commit
To sign up: Please fill out the form below.
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
You might have noticed that I haven’t posted much lately. I’ve got all my kids home with me this summer, and instead of writing blog posts, I’ve been busy staycation-ing with the Kooky Klempners.
I’ve squeezed in a quite bit of writing this summer, but not on this blog.
To help other family camping/mommy camping/staycationing families in the L.A. area, I created a website last summer. This year, I made a lot of improvements over there, as well as posting regularly about various adventures I’ve had with my family. You can check the site out here. I’m quite proud of this project: I’ve helped lots of families, and I think it came out pretty spiffy for a website done on the cheap.
You can expect fewer posts until the kids return to school in the fall. Try to contain your disappointment. 😉
The local Jewish children’s library here in L.A. will be closing in a month and a half. It gets plenty of visitors, but the Federation wants to let the Zimmer Museum (a bigger money-maker) use the space.
Think she heard the Jewish Library is closing? (Picture available through Creative Commons–rumolay on Flickr)
Regular patrons like me are grumbling. How else can we feed the voracious literary appetites of our Jewish kids without breaking the bank? PJ Library is a fabulous resource, but has three drawbacks:
This past Sunday, the Jewish library was packed for the monthly Read with Dogs event, and the parents bemoaned the closure. We’re upset that the amazing librarian, Amy, will lose her job, and will miss the books and activities that we’ve enjoyed there.
There’s a Facebook Page for the effort to save the book collection at a new location. If anyone has the link, please post it below in the comments. It’ll only work through grassroots efforts.
One of my favorite things to do is to promote the work of Jewish writers with West Coast connections. Here are a few I’ve read in the last couple months:
Tova Younger’s recent release
Tova Younger is a former Angeleno who settled in Kiryat Sefer in 2004. Her new book, Hands-On How To’s for the Home & Heart, contains friendly and very practical advice of all types for the Jewish wife.
When I was first living on my own, someone gave me a book, Where’s Mom Now That I Need Her: Surviving Away from Home. That cookbook/home repair/car repair/first aid/ and just about everything else manual got me through a lot of tough situations. Younger’s book is almost a Jewish version of that secular classic—chock full of basic information that every Jewish homemaker can benefit from.
Divided up into four primary sections:
—Hands-On How To’s for the Home & Heart offers advice about everything from maintaining proper kavana (focus) to proper laundering; from how to make conversation with the relatives to whom we owe kavod (honor), to recipes for basics like beet salad and cornflake quiche.
Younger’s book would make a terrific gift for seminary girls, the newly married, and even seasoned homemakers. You can find it on discount right now at Jewish e-Books.
Rachel Pomerantz’s latest
Well-known Orthodox author Rachel Pomerantz frequently travels to SoCal to visit her brother and mother, who live near San Andreas. Her latest serial novelization, Bells & Pomegranates, follows the shidduch process of various characters (introduced in previous books), all of whom have life circumstances that present hurdles in their quest for a mate.
There are step-siblings Yoel and Devora, who have been adopted, and the twins Rina and Gila, who converted as children and grew up in a single parent home. There’s foster child Ronny, whose mother is mentally ill, and Yossi, the child of baalei teshuva. Sarah’s got great yichus, but she’s an orphan. These characters and others start off the shidduch process with considerable challenges—but as the novel progresses, Pomerantz throws additional complications into their paths, lending drama and suspense to their intermingled stories.
Bells & Pomegranates is more than kosher entertainment for a rainy afternoon. In describing the family dramas of her characters, Pomerantz invites us to question our own preferences and prejudices. How do my assumptions affect my judgment? How involved should parents and grandparents be in the shidduch process? What are legitimate reasons to call off a prospective match? These questions and others lingered with me after I finished the book.
While a seasoned freelance author, Nancy Steiner is new to picture book writing. Her first kids’ title, On This Night, will likely prove to be a classic. In cheerful—but unforced—rhyme, Steiner leads readers through the steps of the seder. Her language is perfectly accessible for young readers and will prepare them for the Pesach experience.
The darling illustrations by Wendy Edelson depict an adorable family celebrating their seder. Edelson portrays the family members from a variety of angles, adding to the visual interest. From the twinkly-eyed zeide to the drowsy preschooler on the final page, the pictures (and text) are sure to engage kids aged 2 to 6.
L.A. resident Sarah Bunin Benor’s new book, Becoming Frum (Rutgers University Press 2012), considers the ways newly religious Jews adapt to the language of the mainstream Orthodox world. While an academic book rather than a religious one, Bunin Benor bases her conclusions largely on research conducted here in L.A., and her book will be of great interest of those engaged in the baalei teshuva phenomenon. I participated in her initial online survey, which piqued my interest in her work. I hope to write an entire post devoted to Bunin Benor’s book (and her spin-off website) soon.
Now, I know you’re going to say that Tu B’Shevat is the next Jewish holiday on the calendar, and we usually make a Tu B’Shevat seder around here and all that, but around the Klempner household, it’s Purim that gets us excited. That’s when we circulate our crazy “newspaper.” Every year. The groovy news is that this year, there will be a comics page! I’ll post the final product up as a downloadable pdf on Purim day, IY”H.
Looking for something to read to the kids about Purim? Ariella Stern (local Angelina) published another cute Lift-the-Flap book. It’s just out. Lots of Purim trivia, adorable illustrations, and good for ages 2-7.
Purim Guess Who?
Rebecca Klempner 