Monthly Archives: June 2024

I Wrote a Poem in Hebrew

            It started as a song. I was in my car (on the way to yet another doctor’s appointment) and singing harmony along to some of the Israeli songs on my playlist, and I started to think about how I could write a song specifically for an alto (like me) where the harmony line becomes the melody of the song. But I was too busy driving to record what I was singing, and by the time I got to the doctor’s office and tried to record the tune on my phone, I’d forgotten most of it. But while I was in the waiting room, and then waiting again in the exam room, I wrote down some of the lyrics that had come to mind while I was singing, and the words kept coming, all in Hebrew.

            By the time I got home from the appointment, I had four or five pages of potential lyrics, but no music to sing them to, and no idea how to get the music back. I decided to keep working on the lyrics anyway, shaping them into verses and a chorus and a bridge, in the hope that the melody would come back to me; but I found myself writing a poem instead, without any strict rhymes or rhythms. And after ten or fifteen drafts, and some help from Google Translate, I ended up with a poem I was happy with, about returning to my online Hebrew classes after a year away.

            It took me a while to get up the nerve to send the poem to my current Hebrew teacher and ask for her corrections, though. I felt self-conscious about presuming to write a poem in Hebrew, and embarrassed to share what had turned out to be an ode, and kind of emotional and squishy (AKA not cool).

            My teacher made a few corrections to the Hebrew, but mostly she just showered me with praise. She told me how meaningful it was to her, after teaching through the past year in Israel, to see that her work was paying off and reaching people at such a deep level. She also asked if she could send it to some of her friends, who also teach at the school, and I jumped up and down for a while before I could calmly type back, Sure. It took me a few more days to get up the nerve to ask her if I could send the poem to our WhatsApp group, to share it with my classmates, but when I finally sent it I got some very nice responses, and I felt great for a whole minute, maybe even two!

            Then, of course, the letdown kicked in and I thought, ugh, I’ll have to keep writing poems in Hebrew to keep getting this much attention, and each poem will have to be better than the one before it or else they’d get bored and, really, over it. Or, maybe I could send the poem to new people, so they could be impressed, and then I wouldn’t have to write a whole new thing. And I thought, Aha! The blog! But, most of my readers are not fluent in Hebrew, so I would have to translate it, but I could also include the Hebrew, so they could be impressed in theory, if not in fact.

            And as I started to translate the poem I realized that, except for a few details, this poem could just as easily be about the blogging world, and the kindness and curiosity and love we share here, in this place that doesn’t quite exist in the real world, but is very real, for us.

            So, thank you for being such amazing, passionate, and compassionate people, and I hope you like the poem.

            Hinei! (Here it is!)

An Ode to Citizen Café Tel Aviv

A year ago, I thought I was done with this,

I thought I’d finished learning Hebrew

After two years in the Zoom rooms.

Maybe, I thought, this is my Hebrew

And it can’t improve anymore.

And so, I closed the door on this world.

But,

I still dreamt about the zoom rooms

That existed outside of space, or

I worried,

That didn’t exist in reality at all.

Those zoom rooms were closed to me for almost a year,

And what a year,

In which the world shattered into many little pieces.

I watched the news and said to myself,

Maybe the whole world is different from what I imagined

And there’s nowhere to go for comfort.

Finally I understood

That I missed the zoom rooms

That exists outside of space or that I’d imagined completely,

But,

I’d lost the key

Or I’d lost the path to the rooms

Just when I needed them the most.

I missed all of the weird sentences,

About the beach and the traffic in Tel Aviv,

And about Ross and Rachel from Friends

And about Beyoncé the queen.

I missed all of the speed dating questions that we answered in the rooms,

And I missed this place where love is in the air,

Love of languages, love of food, love of music and laughter,

Love of the land of Israel and the Jewish people.

And so I decided to return

Even if these rooms only exist in my imagination,

Because I remembered that here everyone believes in this world that we create together.

This world isn’t perfect, I know.

Here everyone speaks Hebrew with a different accent,

And they don’t agree on a lot of things.

One man believes in every word of the Torah, and one doesn’t believe in anything.

One woman believes in world peace, and one thinks it’s impossible.

But,

In these rooms, all that matters to us

Is to learn from each other and to support each other

And to create a different world,

A world filled with kindness and curiosity.

That’s why we’re here

From Barcelona, and New York, and Berlin,

And Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, and London,

And Argentina, and Toronto, and Arizona

To create a beautiful world together,

With all of our words and all of our love.

And because of this, our world, which exists outside of space, is real

For us and for always.

עוד (או אודה ל)סיטיזן קפה תל אביב

לפני שנה, חשבתי שמיציתי את זה,

חשבתי שסיימתי ללמוד עברית,

אחרי שנתיים בחדרי הזום.

אולי, חשבתי, זאת העברית שלי

והיא לא יכולה להשתפר עוד.

ואז, סגרתי את הדלת לעולם הזה.

אבל,

עדיין חלמתי על חדרי הזום

שהיו קיימים מחוץ לחלל, או

דאגתי,

שלא היו קיימים במציאות בכלל.

חדרי הזום האלה היו סגורים לי כמעט שנה,

ואיזו שנה,

שבה העולם התנפץ להרבה חלקים קטנים.

צפיתי בחדשות ואמרתי לעצמי,

אולי כל העולם שונה ממה שדמיינתי

ואין לאן ללכת לנחמה.

סוף סוף הבנתי

שהתגעגעתי לחדרי הזום

שקיימים מחוץ לחלל, או שדמיינתי לגמרי.

אבל,

פספסתי את המפתח

או פספסתי את הדרך לחדרים,

פשוט כשהכי הייתי צריכה אותם.

התגעגעתי לכל המשפטים המוזרים,

על הים והפקקים בתל אביב,

ועל רוס ורייצ׳ל מחברים,

ועל ביונסה המלכה.

התגעגעתי לכל השאלות הספיד דייטינג שעשינו בחדרים,

והתגעגעתי למקום הזה שבו אהבה נמצאת באוויר,

אהבת שפות, אהבת אוכל, אהבת מוזיקה וצחוקים,

אהבת מדינת ישראל והעם היהודי.

ואז החלטתי לחזור,

אפילו אם החדרים האלה רק קיימים בדמיון שלי,

כי זכרתי שפה כולם מאמינים בעולם הזה שאנחנו יוצרים ביחד.

העולם הזה לא מושלם, אני יודעת.

פה כולם מדברים עברית עם מבטא אחר,

ולא מסכימים על הרבה דברים.

איש אחד מאמין בכל מילה בתורה, ואחד לא מאמין בכלום.

אישה אחת מאמינה בשלום עולמי, ואחת חושבת שזה בלתי אפשרי.

אבל,

בחדרים האלה כל מה שחשוב לנו

זה ללמוד אחד מהשני ולתמוך אחד בשני

ולהמציא עולם אחר,

עולם מלא חסד וסקרנות.

בגלל זה אנחנו פה

מברצלונה, וניו יורק, וברלין,

ותל אביב, ויורשלים, ולונדון,

וארגנטינה, וטורונטו, ואריזונה

ליצור עולם יפה ביחד,

עם כל המילים שלנו, וכל האהבה שלנו.

ובגלל זה העולם שלנו, שקיים מחוץ לחלל, הוא אמיתי

לנו ולתמיד.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

Can I Make Things Happen?

            In a previous post I mentioned that I was putting the idea of what I want out into the universe, and ever since then I’ve been debating with myself over whether I really believe in this concept or not. I want to believe in it. I want to believe that by putting my dreams into words and speaking them outloud I can create some sort of alchemy that will bring these dreams to life. But then I worry that this is all “magical thinking,” which has always been a soft spot of mine, and something I’ve been told is somewhere in mental illness territory.

Logically, I can argue that you have to articulate your dreams in order to reach them, at least as a first step on the journey, because if you don’t know what you want you can’t work towards your goals. And I can also argue that telling other people what you hope for can be practical, both because they may have connections or advice to help you reach your goals, and because having friends remind you of your goals can keep you on track. And, if you strip away the wishful thinking part of the whole thing, it’s reasonable to assume that if you focus more on the things you really want in your life, you will start to notice the small opportunities you might have missed before, and therefore have more chances to reach your goals.

            But, I don’t think that’s what I really mean when I think about the power of putting an idea out into the universe, or “manifesting” as it seems to be called today. What I’m really hoping for is that God, or the universe, will give me what I want without me having to do anything.

            Early in life I learned about a version of God that actively does these kinds of things for us: pushing water out of the way so that my ancestors could cross the Sea of Reeds, or sending locusts to convince Pharaoh to let our people go. I loved this vision of God, but it was hard to hold onto it in the face of a much more disappointing version of reality. Then I was taught that even though God hears our prayers, and they are therefore never wasted, sometimes, for whatever reason, God’s answer is no; and we should trust that when God says no to our requests that means the best answer was no, even if we will never understand why. This has never been a satisfying idea for me, if only because I don’t really trust authority figures to judge what’s best for me. Even God.

And then, in college, I learned that it is reasonable to doubt that God has a plan as such and is choosing winners and losers, or even has a role in our everyday lives. Instead, I should see God in the Aristotelian way – as the unmoved mover, the one who got the ball rolling but then stepped back and left us to our own devices. And therefore we have to make our own fate, and fight and scrap for everything we want and never wait for luck to kick in.

            So, I’m split. I believe, deep in my heart, that there are powers and connections at work in the universe that exist despite my inability to see them. But I also believe, almost as deeply, that believing in such things is ridiculous.

Recently, my mother underwent a heart procedure where they were supposed to insert clips on her mitral valve in order to mitigate the damage to the valve, which was causing fluid to regurgitate into the left ventricle. She has had mild to moderate damage to her mitral valve forever, but a recent test showed that the damage had reached the severe stage and therefore needed to be addressed surgically.

Except, the procedure was unsuccessful. It’s not that the clips were unable to adequately close the holes in the mitral valve but that the doctor was unable to even deploy the clips in the first place, because of changes in Mom’s anatomy caused by her scoliosis. The doctor also discovered two other important things during this failed procedure: one, because of these changes in her anatomy the open heart surgery that would have to be performed to fully replace her mitral valve would be contraindicated (aka too dangerous), and two, the damage to the mitral valve isn’t actually so severe and therefore can be managed with medication.

After reading up on “manifesting,” I started to worry that my fears about the open heart surgery had caused this procedure to fail. I was asking God to make sure we didn’t have to do the open heart surgery, or anything that could put my mother’s life at risk, and what if, in response, God said, Okay, we’ll just stop it all right here. The logical part of my brain says that God didn’t do any such thing, and that this was going to be the outcome no matter what I thought or prayed for. But if that’s true, doesn’t that mean that my prayers are a waste of time in every case?

In the research I did on “manifesting,” I came across different interpretations of the idea. One said that having any negative thoughts causes negative things to happen, so, it really is all my fault. Another said that if you do affirmations a thousand or so times a day, you will draw your goals closer to you, with your vibrations. The most practical interpretation I read, though, said that the point of all of the thinking and hoping and focusing on your goals is to get you to start thinking of actions you can take towards your goals, and to encourage you to notice more opportunities than you otherwise would. There is still some magic implied in this interpretation, along the lines of “God helps those who help themselves,” but it’s a kind of magic I can almost believe in.

The reality is, you can argue for almost any world view you want to, and find plenty of evidence for your choice, but there will always be loose threads left unexplained, because we don’t, and can’t, know the whole picture. We are all guessing, or at the very least, interpreting the data we ourselves have access to as if that’s all the data that exists.

So, do I believe that I can manifest my dreams by saying them out loud? Maybe. I don’t know.

For now, I’m going to hope that the doctors can find the right combination of medications to help Mom manage her mitral valve, and allow her to have the energy to do more of the things she loves, for many years to come. And I’m going to keep looking at the stuffed puppy dog sitting on top of my computer screen, and hope that the real life version of him will arrive someday soon. I don’t know if God listens to my hopes and prayers, but I know that it feels good to put it all into words, and saying my dreams outloud makes me feel like I’m taking steps to make the world into the kind of place I can live in, just by imagining that it already is that place. We’ll see where it takes me.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

Grandpa’s Memoir

            Recently, I realized that while I had typed up all of my grandfather’s letters back and forth with his father (despite many of my great grandfather’s responses being in Yiddish and broken English) and my grandmother’s travel diaries (listing all of the things she hated about each country she visited) and all of the children’s stories my grandfather had written for his grandchildren, or at least the ones that I could find, I hadn’t typed up his forty some odd page memoir, even though I was sure I had. We’ve had copies of his handwritten memoir forever, and maybe that’s why I assumed it had been typed up or at least scanned into the computer at some point, but no.

Grandpa’s memoir

            So, since I’m on summer break from work, I decided to type the memoir and give myself the opportunity to hear my grandfather’s voice once again.

            I had four grandparents, of course, but my father’s parents were both difficult people with not-so-great English who were unlikely to write down their thoughts in any language. And my mother’s mother, who wrote quite a lot, was not the most generous soul, so reading through her poems and essays, can be, at the very least, claustrophobic.

            But my mother’s father was a writer (as well as a teacher) and towards the end of his life he decided to sit down and write an account of his childhood, specifically for his grandchildren. He wrote, early in the pages, that he wished he’d had such an account from his own grandparents, and so he wanted to make sure to do that for us.

            For the past few weeks, whenever I’ve had time, and energy, I’ve been sitting in front of the computer transcribing a few pages of my grandfather’s handwriting – hearing his unique voice and how he played with punctuation (a dash here, a comma there, often both at the same time) and how he often repeated words for emphasis, like hard hard, for very hard, or much much, for very much. Interestingly, I’ve noticed this same pattern in Modern Hebrew, where le’at le’at (or slow slow) means very slowly, and maher maher (or fast fast) means very quickly.

            I was sure I remembered everything important from having read the memoir years ago, but of course there were so many things I’d forgotten: like his descriptions of the outhouse behind the tenement across the street, and how lucky his family was to live in a tenement that had two indoor toilets per floor; or his description of all of the wonderful food his mother made for holidays, or the deep anxiety she lived with year round and that was finally echoed by everyone else during the High Holidays; and there were all of the stores he accompanied his mother to, when he was only four years old, because his English was better than hers; and the way he described his childhood synagogue on Yom Kippur, where the Cantor would close the windows, to avoid catching a cold from the breeze, leaving many people struggling with the heat, and fainting from the combination of the heat and the hunger from fasting.

            My grandfather was a wonderful storyteller; I’ve always known that. And he had strong feelings about the ways his childhood orthodoxy no longer fit him as he grew up and began thinking through his Judaism for himself. And I knew that he loved language and food and his family. None of the information or the wisdom in these pages is new to me, but I am so grateful for the opportunity to dawdle over these pages again and to take my time as I type (because I am a very slow typist) and visit with him again.

Grandpa

            In the midst of the typing, my great aunt Ellen, my grandfather’s baby sister, died at the age of one hundred and eight. She had outlived the rest of her siblings by decades, taking on the mantle of family elder and family glue. And with her death it feels like a whole generation is disappearing at once, except for all of the memories they’ve left behind, including this memoir my grandfather wrote just a few years before he died. These forty short pages are giving me a chance to have conversations with him that we never got to have when he was alive, and I am so grateful to have these words to help keep his memory alive, and the memory of his baby sister whom we loved very much, and, who, as a result, we will never really lose.

Ellen (right) with her sister Susie

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

Back in Hebrew Class

            I’m back in my online Hebrew classes and it is such a relief. I didn’t realize how much I missed this imaginary place, this zoom class that exists somewhere outside of space and which I can get to without leaving my apartment. After almost a year away – and such a year – I feel so much gratitude to be back.

            Up until the moment class started, though, I wasn’t sure how I would feel. I was already feeling guilty for spending the money on this instead of on ten other things that seemed more important, and I felt needy and silly for wanting to be taught instead of teaching, and I felt ridiculous for not having been to Israel yet after so many years of wanting to go.

            And then, because I was out of practice with the time difference between New York and Israel, I thought the class started at 2:30 PM and was surprised when I checked my email and found out that the class had already started, at 1:30, and I was late. I still had to set up my computer and brush my hair and change my shirt (I wear my pajamas all day every day when I’m not at work) and log into the new learning system the school had created while I was away, and by the time I finally popped up on screen I was fifteen minutes late.

            But I was fine. No, better than fine.

            The class (or the screen) was full and there were some familiar faces, but mostly the faces were new to me, including the teacher. And yet I was able to keep up, and my Hebrew was much closer to the tip of my tongue than I’d feared. We didn’t talk about the news, much, instead we focused on the things we could control, like how to be kind and generous with each other and leave room for making mistakes. I’m a big fan of being treated like a big puppy dog when I make mistakes, instead of hit over the head with a hammer.

“No ouchies for me!”

            During my first week back in class I went to every practice group I could get to, which ended up being more than I’d gone to in the two years I’d spent in the program before. I wanted to challenge myself, socially and with my Hebrew, to get back into the stream as quickly as possible. And I didn’t realize until afterwards how easy it was, compared to even a year ago, to manage the social anxiety and fear of the unknown that comes with the practice groups – especially in week one when I had no idea who my teachers or fellow classmates would be. In our regular classes things are more predictable: you get a class list ahead of time, and an introduction from your teacher, and that’s your group for the semester. But in practice groups we’re dropped into breakout rooms with random strangers to discuss random topics and then we’re being tested on things we’ve learned in previous semesters, generally using vocabulary I forgot long ago.

I don’t think I’ll be able to do this many groups every week, both because I have doctors’ appointments coming up and other things I need to get done this summer, but I’d really like to work harder this summer than in the past and push myself and my Hebrew as far as possible.

            Except, despite all of the progress I’ve made on my mental health, somewhere around the third or fourth practice group the negative voices in my head returned: Why am I such a loser that I have to pay people to spend time with me and laugh at my jokes, why is everyone else so much more impressive and successful than me, why does everyone else get to be married and have children and travel around the world and have so much more energy and good health than me?

            I’m not sure why the negative voices were on pause for the first few days, but at least that gave me a few moments to revel in the joy of being back in class. But then the avalanche of pain made me realize that this was probably why I’d decided to stop taking classes last year. I thought, at the time, that I had run out of ambition to learn more Hebrew, but I think it was more that the classes were bringing up too much internal noise that I couldn’t handle and couldn’t drown out.

            The anxiety I used to be so focused on, around making mistakes and saying the wrong thing, seems to have been hiding a much deeper pool of anxiety around all of the things I want to have in my life and believe I can’t have. Being in class seems to bring up so much longing – to go to Israel, to have more friends, to be more successful in my career, and to be in love – and when all of that longing comes up to the surface, my deeply felt belief is that none of that is possible for me.

            In the past, when these feelings overwhelmed me, my answer was to turn off the faucet altogether, usually without realizing what I was doing. But now, it seems like my brain is telling me that I am ready for more, or should be, and therefore it’s time to let me know that I want more; but I still feel like the things I long for are impossible, and I don’t know why my brain believes I’m closer to ready.

            So, in the midst of seeing real progress, and feeling real joy, I’m also feeling awful at the same time, and it sucks. I’m so frustrated by how long it takes to make progress in my life, and how often I have to stomp the brakes to avoid falling off cliffs that seem to come out of nowhere. I wish I knew how long each step forward would take, and which goals would actually be reachable, because then I could plot it all out on a calendar and be comforted that it’s all going to happen when it needs to happen; but instead I have no idea what will be possible next week, let alone next year.

            My brain remains mysterious to me, and I don’t understand what it is about Hebrew in particular that has opened this door for me, but I am committed to continuing to go forward in whichever ways feel possible. So I will make as much of this summer of Hebrew as possible, enjoying the laughter and the challenges and the friendships, and I will also try to make sense of the pain and confusion that come along with them. And I will keep trying to remind myself that this is what progress looks like and feels like, for me, even if I wish it could be different.

“Hiding is always a good idea.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?

The Flowers on the Pawpaw Tree

            The Pawpaw tree has flowered again. Actually, some of the flowers have already bloomed and fallen away, exposing the tiny fruit getting ready to grow. There’s endless inspiration in watching this pawpaw tree go through its cycle of life and death and renewal each year. In the winter, when all I can see is the bare tree with no leaves or buds or fruit or flowers, it would be easy to imagine that there is no life left, but I know better. I know that spring always comes again.

The reddish brown pawpaw flowers
Can you see the three little fruits in a clump?

            When Cricket died in October, I put her collar around the trunk of the pawpaw tree, not because I thought she might come back to life herself in the spring, but because I hoped her life would be an inspiration to the tree, to keep growing. Ellie’s collar was added in December and in a way it made the tree seem more whole, because now it had both the quiet joy of Ellie and the loud vibrancy of Cricket to help it along.

This picture was taken in December, when the Pawpaw tree was still sleeping.

            I don’t know why this small gesture has been so meaningful to me, but every time I see their collars there on the pawpaw tree I feel a sense of comfort and reassurance. I still hear the dogs in the apartment all the time, and I see shadows and imagine that one of them is running past my door. It still surprises me how solid these memories feel, of all of the dogs and people I’ve loved and lost. It’s not that “I see dead people,” but I feel their presence in my mind and in my heart in a way that is so much more substantial than the words “ghost” or “spirit” would suggest.

            My grandfather, who died when I was eight years old, is still a daily presence in my life: his smile and his laugh and the strength of his attention bolster me through so many difficult days. The same is true of some of the less positive characters from my past too, unfortunately, but there’s at least reassurance in knowing that my memories remain a part of me, and none of that time was wasted.

Grandpa

            However temporary nature may be, with flowers blooming and wilting, and dogs coming into my life and passing away, I know that I will never really lose them. It all remains. And I think that’s a gift, even if at times a bittersweet one.

We’ll always be here, Mommy.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Young Adult novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

            Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?