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Playing the FieldEven though he retired from pro football in 1934, Jewish quarterback Benny Friedman didn’t make the sport’s Hall of Fame until 2005. Now, Friedman has received a biography of his own.
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Away For the Holy Days: Yom Kippur in MoscowOn the morning of Yom Kippur a few weeks ago, I woke up in a hotel built during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, marched past the tempting smells of blini and raspberry jam drifting from the dining room, crossed a bridge over the Moscow River, skirted a corner of the Kremlin wall, proceeded along Ulitsa Varvarka past several 17th-century churches and the Znamensky Monastery, dodged sharply dressed Moscovites cruising the sidewalks on their way to work and spotted a gold Star of David atop a squat white dome behind a cluster of other buildings. I dug out my little pocket map. Yes, that would have to be it. The Moscow Choral Synagogue.
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Museum MadnessMuseums are hit and miss with young kids. Josie, at 6, was enthralled by the Superheroes exhibit at the Met last summer, but Maxine, 3, was less enchanted. (She hung from my arm and wailed, “I have to leave this boring place or I am going to be dead.”) Last year, at William Steig Storybook Family Day at the Jewish Museum, Maxine had a blast designing an illustrated book with me at a crafts table, but when she spotted the guy in the massive green Shrek costume, she let out a shriek of mortal terror and clung to me like lichen. Both girls tolerated the Murakami show at the Brooklyn Museum — bright colors! Cuteness! The promise of a flower-shaped plush happy face pin at the gift shop! — though Josie and her friend Lila exploded in giggles at the statue of a huge-knockered woman jumping a rope of her own breast milk. Thankfully, the kids were oblivious to the nearby statue of the young cowboy whirling a lasso made of semen. I hadn’t read up on the exact content of the show before taking the kids. (And then I collected my parenting medal.)
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