Zepbound

Posted on November 2, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            At my most recent visit to the endocrinologist (thyroid issues, etc.), the doctor told me that Lilly has decided to offer Zepbound (a variation on Ozempic) for a discounted price to patients whose insurance companies won’t cover the GLP-1 weight loss medications. The average price for these medications, in the United States, is about $1,000 a month, though in other countries they can be bought for $100 or less, which has come up in contentious congressional hearings of late. My health insurance still refuses to cover these medications for anyone without type two diabetes or a severe heart condition, and I have been waiting impatiently for them to decide to cover GLP-1 medications for Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which I was diagnosed with last year, but who knows when that will happen.

            Last year, the endocrinologist told me about a program that discounted Zepbound to half price, but only for people without any insurance coverage, which did not include me. But now, they are making it available to people like me who have health insurance that doesn’t cover the medications. The cost is $400 a month, which is a lot for me, but for the sake of my health I really can’t say no. My hope is that, if the Zepbound works for me, these medications will soon be covered under my health insurance and I won’t have to pay this much for long. Ideally, losing weight will improve the health of my liver and reduce the need for heart medications. I don’t think it will give me more energy, or reduce overall body pain, but you never know.

            To be completely honest, though, what I really want from this medication is to lose enough weight to feel like a normal person. Yes, I want to reduce my risk of liver and heart disease. And yes, I would love to find out that losing weight could give me more energy and allow me to actually live more of my life, but, since childhood, I have been self-conscious about my weight, and I am so tired of feeling like a mutant. I know weight loss won’t change my life miraculously, because I’ve lost weight in the past, when I was able to exercise enough to lose weight on my own. And I’m sure I will still feel uncomfortable in my body, and struggle with pain and depression and anxiety and exhaustion. But it would be great to be able to go to my doctors and tell them my symptoms and NOT have them blame everything on my weight.

            I was on a low dose of Ozempic last year, when my insurance was still allowing it, and I lost fifteen pounds. But as soon as the FDA cracked down on off label use of Ozempic, I was cut off, and within three months I’d gained the weight back. So, one, I know the meds can work, and two, I know I will have to be on them forever.

There’s a lot of fear for me around starting the Zepbound, actually. For some reason, the discounted Zepbound comes in a vial, with separate needles, instead of in pre-dosed pens, so I’m afraid it will hurt more and/or I will do it wrong. I’m afraid I won’t be able to lose enough weight to make a difference in my health, or I’ll get cut off again, because the price will go up or supplies will run out. I’m afraid I’ll be sick to my stomach for the rest of my life (though that’s not very different from how I feel now, to be honest), or that the Zepbound won’t work, or that I’ll lose the weight but I’ll look like a deflated balloon instead of looking, and feeling, healthy.

Maybe most of all, I’m afraid that having to spend $400 a month on this for the foreseeable future, on top of paying off my medical debt, will mean that I can’t really afford a new dog, with all of the vet bills and adoption fees and toys and treats involved. And going too much longer without a dog in the house feels like a risk to my mental health (and to Mom’s). It feels so unfair to have to choose between my physical health and my mental health, especially when they are so intertwined. But here’s hoping I won’t have to choose, and a little, hypoallergenic rescue dog will come along soon, and congress will decide to cover GLP-1 meds for Non-alcoholic fatty liver, and all medical debt will be wiped out, and we will all live in peace and harmony, forever and ever, amen.

A girl can dream. Right?

“I’ll eat whatever you’re not eating. You’re welcome.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my 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?

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Cricket’s Yahrzeit

Posted on October 26, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            In Jewish tradition, about eleven months after a funeral you have an unveiling, where you finally put up the permanent headstone at the gravesite, with a small ceremony to mark the end of the official mourning period. The unveiling is actually supposed to take place after thirty days (for most relatives) and after eleven months (for a parent), but in the United States most unveilings take place after eleven months no matter how close the relationship with the dead.

            We have two blue gift bags sitting on the low bookcase (where we used to keep the chicken treats), each holding a sympathy card from the vet’s office and a container of ashes: Cricket died in October 2023, and Ellie died in December, two very short months later. My hope was that, after eleven months, I would finally be ready to spread Cricket’s ashes around the base of the paw paw tree (which was born just a few months before Cricket herself), but I wasn’t ready. And even now, after the yahrzeit (literally “year time,” the anniversary of her death), I’m still not ready.

            The one thing I felt ready to do, though, was to mark Cricket’s yahrzeit with light. Of course, I didn’t think ahead and buy an official yahrzeit candle (a twenty-four-hour candle in protective glass), but Mom found two leftover beeswax candles from last Chanukah, and we placed them in a jar in front of Cricket’s picture and watched the flames burn down. I really wanted the two candles to intertwine in some way, to represent how Cricket is still so intertwined in our lives, but the way the two candles split apart and seemed to mimic her flying ears was a wonderful surprise.

            Maybe when we reach the anniversary of Ellie’s death, in December, I’ll feel more ready to let go of both of them, or maybe not. I’m trying to be patient with myself and to trust my feelings to tell me what I can handle and what I can’t, because I miss them both so much. I don’t just miss having “a dog” in my house, but these two particular dogs. They are still knotted up in my life and my thoughts, as if there’s more they need to teach me.

            In a strange symmetry, the pawpaw tree seems to also be in mourning this year. Early in the summer, we were thrilled to find out that, despite some of the lower branches being cut off by the gardeners (again!), we still had four pawpaws growing on our tree. We were hopeful that this year would yield the biggest, healthiest fruit yet, and so we decided to wait as long as possible before picking them, to give them time to fully ripen. But we waited too long. One day in September, when I looked up at the pawpaw tree, I couldn’t find any of the pawpaws. I was used to struggling to see one or two of them, behind those big green leaves, so I told myself I’d just try again later. But when I checked again, and then a third time, there were no pawpaws visible on the tree, and then I checked the ground and found what looked like two small carcasses with their guts spilling out. I looked away automatically, thinking some horrible death had come to two tiny birds, but when I forced myself to look back I realized they really were the pawpaws, or two of them anyway.

One of the pawpaws, in July

            I didn’t cry. I mean, they’re just fruit, right? Just because they are vivid symbols of love, and now of my dogs in particular, doesn’t mean they are, or were, truly alive. Right?

            I never found the other two pawpaws. My hope is that the squirrels (it’s always the squirrels) actually enjoyed the other two pieces of fruit and they didn’t all go to waste.

            In a way, having a fruitless year, or at least a year without pawpaws, is fitting. The loss of the dogs, and the grief and anger and fear and confusion around the war in Israel cries out for some kind of symbolism; some kind of acknowledgment that everything is not okay. Its kind of like when you’re feeling awful and the sky breaks open and the rain pours. It almost helps, in a way.

            Maybe next year, our pawpaw tree will be full of fruit and we will have more than enough to share with all of our woodland creatures. And, hopefully before then, we will also find a new dog ready to come home with us and start on a whole new adventure together. But in the meantime, the mourning cotinues.

Miss Cricket
Miss Ellie

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my 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?

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The Basement

Posted on October 19, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

In the basement

In the green house

There were all kinds of tools.

My father collected them.

He taught Industrial Arts to teenagers,

And he loved to build things,

And fix things,

And take things apart,

With his own hands.

Sometimes,

We would go down to the basement to visit our father

On the steep staircase,

Stairs that always creaked.

It seemed like the stairs were warning of something.

The smell in the basement was, in large part, sawdust.

There was sawdust in every corner, and in the air.

The table saw was in the middle of the room,

And the jigsaw,

And all of the handsaws in a line hanging from the ceiling.

The floor of the basement was made of concrete

And the walls were painted grey

And it all looked like a bomb shelter.

There were metal exit doors parallel to the floor

At the end of a set of additional steps

And I always thought that these doors were there to let us out

After the dust settled, after the end of the world.

There was a darkroom in the basement, to develop photos,

In black and white and color.

I didn’t like the red light in the darkroom,

Even more so the darkness itself.

And there was a corner of the basement for making bullets

With gun powder and casings.

My father had more than one gun.

Everywhere, my father had Philips head screwdrivers and

Flat head screwdrivers and wrenches and drills in every size.

He had a wood lathe and a metal lathe

And hammers and nails and an anvil screwed to the floor.

There was also a ceramics kiln and a jewelry kiln.

There were clay molds

And a printing press that had to be used carefully,

One letter at a time.

There were all kinds of things in my father’s basement,

Loud noises

And smells that burned the inside of my nose,

Smells like turpentine and sawdust and metal,

And maybe blood, or maybe that was just in my imagination.

not my pictures, but very familiar

בָּמָרתֵף

בָּבַּיִת הָיָרוֹק

הָיוּ כֹּל מִינֵי כְּלֵי עָבוֹדָה.

אָבָּא שֶׁלִי אָסָף אוֹתָם.

הוּא לִימֵד אָמַנוּיוֹת תָעָשִׂייתִיוֹת לְבּנֵי נוֹעָר,

וְהוּא אָהָב לִבנוֹת דְבָרִים,

וְלְתָקֵן דְבָרִים,

וְלְפָרֵק דְבָרִים,

עִם הָיָדַיִים שֶׁלוֹ.

לִפְעָמִים

יָרָדנוּ לָמָרתֵף לְבָקֵר אֶת אָבָּא

בְּמָדרֵגוֹת הָתלוּלוֹת,

מָדרֵגוֹת שְׁכֹּל פָּעַם חָרקוּ.

נִרְאָה שְׁהָמָדרֵגוֹת הִזהִירוּ מִמָשְׁהוּ.

הָרֵיחַ בָּמָרתֵף הָיָה, בְּגָדוֹל, נָסוֹרֶת.

הָייתָה נְסוֹרֶת בְּכֹּל פִּינָה, וְבָּאָוִויר.

הָמָסוֹר שׁוּלחָן הָיָה בְּאֶמצַע הָחֶדֶר,

וְהָמָסוֹר פָּאזֶל,

וְכֹּל מסוֹרֵי הָיָדנַיִים בְּשׁוּרָה וְתָלוּי מְהָתִקרָה.

הָרִצפָּה שֶׁל הָמָרתֵף הָייתָה עָשׂוּיָה מִמֶלֶט

וְהָקִירוֹת נִצבְּעוּ בְּאָפוֹר,

וְהָכֹּל נִראָה כּמוֹ מִקלָט.

הָיוּ דלָתוֹת יְצִיאָה מִמָתֶכֶת מָקבִילִם לָרִצפָּה

בְּסוֹף סֶט מָדרֵגוֹת נוֹסָף

וְכֹּל הָזמָן חָשָׁבתִי שְׁהָדלָתוֹת הָאֵלֶה הָיוּ שָׁם לְשָׁחרֵר אוֹתָנוּ

אַחָרֵי שְׁהָאַבָק שָׁקָע, אָחַרֵי סוֹף הָעוֹלָם.

הָיָה חֶדֶר חוֹשֶׁך בָּמָרתֵף, לִפִיתוֹחַ תְמוּנוֹת,

בְּשָׁחוֹר לָבָן וְגָם בְּצֶבָע.

לֹא אָהָבתִי אֶת הָאוֹר הָאָדוֹם בָּחָדָר הָחוֹשֶׁך,

עוֹד לֹא אֶת הָחוֹשֶׁך עָצמוֹ.

וְהָייתָה פִּינָה בָּמָרתֵף לְהָכָנָת כָדוּרִים

עִם אָבָקָת רוֹבָה וְתָרמִילִים.

הָיוּ לְאָבָּא יוֹתֵר מְאֶקדַח אֶחָד.

בּכֹל מָקוֹם, הָיוּ לְאָבָּא מִבגָרִים בְּרֹאשׁ פִילִפּס וְבְּרֹאשׁ שָׁטוּחַ

וְמִפתַחֵי בָּרגִים וְמָקדָחִים בְּכֹּל מִידָה.

הָיָה לוֹ מְחַרטֵת עֵץ וְמְחַרטֵת מַתֶכֶת,

וְפְּטִישִׁים וְמָסמָרִים וְסָדָן מוּברָג לָרִצפָּה.

גָם הָיָה כָּבשָׁן קָרָמִיקָה וְכָּבשָׁן תָכשִׁיטִים.

הָיוּ לוֹ תָבנִיוֹת חִמֵר

וְבֵית דְפוּס שְׁצרִיכִים לְהִשׁתָמֵשׁ בָּה בְּזְהִירוּת,

אוֹת אַחַת בְּכֹּל פָּעָם.

הָיוּ כֹּל מִינֵי דבָרִים בָּמָרתֵף שֶׁל אָבָּא,

רָעָשִׁים חָזָקִים

וְרֵיחוֹת שְׁצָרבּוּ אֶת הָחֵלֶק הָפְּנִימִי שֶׁל הָאָף שֶׁלִי,

רֵיחוֹת כְּמוֹ טֶרפַּנטִין וְנְסוֹרֶת וְמָתֶכֶת,

וְאוּלַי דָם, אוֹ אוּלַי זֶה הָיָה רַק בָּדִמיוֹן שֶׁלִי.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my 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?

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Our Imperfect Canopy of Peace

Posted on October 12, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            After Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – the big Jewish holidays where even unaffiliated Jews go to synagogue, or fast for a day, or at least eat brisket in a nod to tradition – comes Sukkot, the holiday where Jews build huts in their yards and eat under the stars for a week. This used to be the biggest Jewish holiday of the year, back in ancient Israel. It was a celebration of the harvest, with everyone traipsing to Jerusalem to see and be seen. Today, among liberal Jews in America, Sukkot doesn’t get much attention, coming as it does four days after Yom Kippur, when everyone is sick of being Jewish, or at least of going to synagogue. And that’s unfortunate, because Sukkot is meant to be a happy holiday, with Sukkah Hops (visiting everyone else’s sukkot/huts to eat cake and cookies and just hang out and gossip), and waving palm fronds, and sniffing citrons (etrogim), and all kinds of weird traditions that keep things interesting and happily silly.

            But a year after the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, which took place during the later days of the holiday of Sukkot, celebrations of the holiday are more complicated. It’s hard to celebrate when Israel is at war (with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and, ultimately, of course, with Iran), 101 hostages are still being held in Gaza, and antisemitism is rising around the world. But celebrating Sukkot is an obligation, and one of the other names for this holiday is Zman Simchateinu (the time of our happiness), so we are obligated not only to go through the motions of erecting a sukkah and saying the blessings over the Lulav and Etrog, but to find moments of true joy as well.

Lulav and etrog

            At my synagogue, we build a sukkah each year (well, someone builds it), and we try to have as many services and events and classes as possible in the sukkah, in order to give everyone a taste of the holiday, since most of us aren’t building our own sukkot at home. And at the synagogue school, we try to make a big deal out of the sukkah in the courtyard, and to engage the students in seeing the holiday through different perspectives. This year’s theme is looking at the connection between the sukkah we build for the holiday of Sukkot, and the more figurative Sukkat Shalom, or Canopy of Peace, that we sing about each week in the Hashkivenu prayer at Friday night services.   The most obvious connection is the word “sukkah,” which can be translated to mean booth or hut, as it is for the holiday of Sukkot, or canopy, as it is in the Hashkivenu prayer, where we ask God to cover us with a canopy of peace; but even more so this year, we are looking for a connection, or hoping for a connection, between these days of Sukkot and peace.

In Leviticus 23:41-43, we are told that living in a sukkah for a week each year is a reminder of the Exodus from Egypt, and the forty years our ancestors spent in the desert afterwards before entering the promised land. But, given that we remember the splitting of the Sea of Reeds in our daily prayers, and spend the whole week of Passover remembering the Exodus from Egypt, the fact that Sukkot is also a time for remembering the Exodus is often forgotten, in favor of the lulav and the etrog and the sukkah and all of the food. But this is a Jewish holiday, and there is no such thing as a simple Jewish holiday; even at a Jewish wedding we manage to remind ourselves of tragedy (stepping on the glass to remember the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and/or to scare away evil spirits). So, it’s not surprising that even during this holiday of happiness, even during a year when we’re not in mourning, we are still called to reexperience suffering.

The sukkah, which really looks ridiculous if you think about it, with its open door and barely covered roof, is a representation of the fragility of life and our imperfect safety in the world, and in both of those ways it is meant to remind us of our dependance on God. And yet, we are commanded to enjoy life in this sukkah, and invite friends and strangers inside to eat with us. We are called to practice creating joy even in the midst of difficulty, because that’s a time when it feels unnatural but is essential to remember that joy is possible.

a sukkah

And I think that may also be the lesson with our Sukkat Shalom, our figurative canopy of peace: that even with God’s protection our lives will be imperfect, and our experience of peace will be imperfect, and temporary.

            And that sucks. I have always wanted to believe in a future filled with an idyllic peace – a world full of comfort and kindness and all of our needs being met – despite never actually experiencing such a thing; even the hope of such peace in the future has been enough to keep me going. But what if this imperfect peace, filled with moments of suffering and fear and open doors and leaky roofs, is the only kind of peace that’s really possible? What if our prayers for peace have already been answered, but because we were looking for something more perfect we can’t recognize it?

We tend to think of peace as an absolute: we are either at peace or at war. But what if peace is complicated, or exists along a spectrum? American Jews are facing a dramatic rise in antisemitism, and grief and confusion and anger over what’s happening in Israel, but even before October 7th peace in Israel and for American Jews was never perfect (Israel was in the middle of yet another ceasefire with Hamas when the attack occurred, after all, and the past few years in America have not been free of antisemitic acts by any means). There is no time in history free of all difficulty. And maybe these holidays, which we are obliged to celebrate every year no matter what circumstances we are living through, are not about keeping us on our guard, or depressed about our lack of safety, but to teach us that even in an imperfect world we can, and must, live our lives as joyfully as possible, as fully as possible.

            It’s a hard lesson to learn, and even harder to teach, honestly. But Sukkot gives us a yearly opportunity to practice living in and appreciating an imperfect peace. We can sit in our fragile shelter and feel the chill in the air and watch our napkins fly off the table, and still eat good food and laugh with our friends and sing together, feeling gratitude for what we have, and grief for what we don’t have, at the same time.

Feeling multiple things at once isn’t the only lesson of Sukkot, but it might be the most useful one for this particular moment in Jewish history. And, it may actually be the key to all of the other life lessons we want our students to learn. We often think of resilience and mental health as the ability to focus only on the positive, but in reality, resilience is the ability to accept life as it is, and continue on. Like it says in Ecclesiastes, there’s a time for everything, a time to plant and time to uproot, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time for peace and a time for war. We are meant to live in all of it, eyes open, taking it in and seeing it for what it is. And even, or most importantly, saying a blessing over what we see.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my 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?

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The Dreaded High Holidays

Posted on October 5, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            I hate the high holidays. I hate the focus on repentance, and the large crowds at the synagogue, and all of the standing, and having to dress up, and the depressing Eastern European music, and the endless communal guilt. I would much rather spend the time watching a Father Brown marathon.

            But I pushed myself to join the choir anyway (which, at my synagogue, mostly sings during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and not much the rest of the year), and each year I push myself to go to as many of the rehearsals as possible, even though I’m tired by 8 pm (which is when choir rehearsals always start). And I push myself to get up early for the morning services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and wear something other than a t-shirt and jeans, and stand and sit and stand for hours. And, I resent it, every year. I especially hate the emphasis on all of the sins we are presumed to have committed over the past year, as if I wasn’t already spending many hours each day combing through my life for my actual sins and trying to correct them.

            So, why do I go? Because it’s an obligation; because of FOMO (fear of missing out); because this is the one time each year when I get to see all of the people who rarely come to Friday night services; because I’d be lonely sitting at home knowing everyone else is there.

            And, because I love to sing. Music is such a mystery to me, because even when it’s imperfect or depressing, it is still, also, transcendent. It connects me with other people; even with people I might otherwise have nothing in common.

            Do I believe, or agree with, every word in every prayer we sing over the high holy days? Not at all. Is it meaningful to me to think of God as a judge or a king, doling out forgiveness for sins I’ve never even committed? Nope. But when those words that mean so very little to me, and even piss me off, are put to music, they are transmogrified into something new and my body becomes one of the instruments producing and receiving and echoing sound. This imperfect body of mine, that feels so much pain and that I feel so self-conscious about, becomes a vessel for transcendent sound for a little while every year, and that only works if my body is in the room with all of the other bodies.

            I wish we could all come together for happier occasions, and sing Israeli pop songs, or  just tell stories and laugh together, but for some reason, when everyone sat down to decide which holidays were going to be the most important ones on the Jewish calendar, they chose Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (at least after the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE, before then the most important holidays were Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot, weeklong festivals to celebrate harvests – more about Sukkot next week). So, why did my ancestors decide that the most important days of the year were the ones where we have to pound our chests and asks for forgiveness and beg God for another chance? I have no idea. But most of the Jews who go to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and not once the rest of the year, pay expensive yearly dues for the privilege. And they seem to think it’s worth the cost.

            Maybe they’re there for the music too, and how it feels to be in a room full of people singing together, no matter what they happen to be singing. Or maybe they don’t realize that there are (much) happier holidays on the Jewish calendar that they could be celebrating with their congregation. Or maybe my people just really love repentance. It doesn’t matter. The decision has already been made, and I can either be there with them, or stay home alone. So, I go. Every year. And I sing, every year. And I whine and complain and need long naps to recover afterwards every year. And I wouldn’t miss it for the world. 

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my 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?

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Back to School

Posted on September 28, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            For my first day back teaching, I was a whirling dervish of energy. I followed along with the Israeli teenager who led us in a TikTok style dance; I taught Hebrew through Movement, which involved a lot of standing up and sitting down and walking, walking, walking; and then I taught my two classes and met (most of) my new students, which meant a lot more standing and dancing and crazy hand gestures and funny breathing exercises. At the time, I was sure I was going to be fine. I mean, it’s not like I was running around the building, or doing pratfalls for laughs (like my students).

            But a couple of hours after I got home, my body started to stiffen and the pain began to set in. By the next morning, I could barely move.

“Hey! I can’t move either!”

            It took me a few days to recover. And, if possible, the second day of teaching was even more challenging. So now, I’m scared. I’m not sure if this physical response is worse than last year’s, or if I just got out of the habit of feeling like I’d been run over by a truck a few times a week. And I’m frustrated, because I spent the whole summer trying to build up strength and endurance in the hopes that I would start the new school year feeling more resilient, and, at the very least, it didn’t work.

            It was wonderful to see my students from last year, and to meet the new kids and hear their unique stories and start to untangle all of the drama among them (this will clearly take all year). And I can see a lot of interesting discussions and tons of silliness in my future, but there’s a voice in the back of my head warning me, you may not last the whole year.

            The fact is, I know I will do everything I can to be there for my students and to live up to all of my commitments – but it’s going to be harder, and it’s going to hurt.

            A few weeks ago, my therapist said, in passing, that my disease/disorder/undiagnosed chronic illness, is degenerative. She didn’t say, “it may be degenerative,” she said “it is.” For many years, she didn’t even believe that there was anything physically wrong with me. She was convinced that all of the pain and exhaustion was psychological, and therefore hard work in therapy would fix everything. But after decades of intensive therapy, and obvious progress in my mental and emotional heath, my physical issues have only worsened, and, finally, her theory of the case had to change.

            But there are so many things I still want to do! I want to teach more, not less. I want to write more, and meet more people, and travel, and dance, and sing. I was really hoping that this summer’s home-made physical therapy regimen was going to make a difference, and I’m so disappointed that it hasn’t helped. To be fair, it’s possible that without all of that work over the summer I would have been in even worse shape for the start of the school year. But for many years now, I’ve been trying everything I could think of: every medication and supplement doctors have suggested, and every exercise and treatment and strategy I could find. But I’m going to have to accept that it’s possible that this is as good as my health is going to get, and find a way to deal with that.

            But really, I don’t wanna. I want to throw a tantrum and scream and kick the floor and just cry. It seems to make my students feel a whole lot better, so, maybe it’s the next thing I should try. It couldn’t hurt! Much.

” I love a good tantrum!”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my 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?

52 Comments

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Hebrew Practice Groups

Posted on September 21, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            At our first professional development of the year, we were asked which sound most characterized our summer, and I realized that mine was laughter, because the laughter in my online Hebrew class this summer was constant, even when we were on mute and could only see each other’s laughing faces. We became a tight knit group, with our young Israeli teacher, able to cover all of the emotional ground that came our way, without ever getting too depressed, because we knew we would be laughing again soon.

            But actually, I spent even more time in Hebrew practice groups this summer than in the class itself, because I had the time and because I finally felt like I could handle the social anxiety that comes with meeting so many strangers and making mistakes in front of them. It was all under the safe canopy of the same online Hebrew language program as my class, but in the practice groups I was meeting dozens of people from different Hebrew levels, and time zones, and ages and cultures.

            There are so many strange topics for discussion in the practice groups. Of course there are the standards: favorite food, favorite movie, what would you bring to a desert island. But then they start to get creative: what’s the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten (Ptcha – calf’s foot jelly); how would you solve global warming? (teach everyone how to fly: Laoof, like a bird, instead of Latoos, on a plane); how many languages can you speak (this one gets very competitive, and more than a few people have tried to count Spanish because they know how to say “Hola.”)

“I can teach you how to fly, if you want.”

            But we are always free to talk about something else in the breakout rooms, as long as we say it in Hebrew, so I’ve had long conversations about my dogs, or teaching, or growing up Jewish on Long Island. And if we’re pretty sure the teacher isn’t about to pop into the breakout room, we can discuss our favorite and least favorite teachers. You’d be amazed how diligently we can stick to Hebrew in the midst of a good gossip session. Because, you know, we’re studying here. We take it very seriously.

            The way the teachers lurk in the breakout rooms is always a topic of conversation. First of all, because they just appear and disappear without warning, like spies. But also, they keep their cameras off, as if we’re supposed to pretend they’re not really there. So, if I make a point of saying hello to the other students in the breakout room and don’t specifically say hello to the teacher, a disembodied voice might say, “Whatever, I’m not here, just ignore me,” which means, Hey, how dare you ignore me!

            Sometimes we’ll talk directly to the teacher – or to the box on the screen with the school logo on it – and ask for the Hebrew word for this or that, and the teacher will pop up on screen to answer “in person.” One time, a friend of mine asked her question, got her answer, and then said, “okay, you can go back into your little box now.”

            We get to meet a lot of teachers in the practice groups and see what their styles are – how they do corrections, how rigidly (or not) they follow their lesson plans, whether or not they have a sense of humor – and I’ve been able to get a much better idea of what works for me and what doesn’t, so that when a teacher’s style starts to get on my nerves, or leaves me feeling stupid, I’m less likely to assume it’s my fault (but only a little less likely).

            Our young Israeli teachers have also introduced us to something called pitzuchim – which literally translates to cracking nuts or seeds, but is used in Hebrew to refer to the way Israelis are always trying to figure out where they might know each other from (among American Jews this is called Jewish geography). It turns out that a lot of the teachers and students in the program have connections, through second cousins or long lost neighbors or who knows what else. So far, though, I have cracked no nuts or seeds on these zooms, which is kind of disappointing. Getting to Israel would be so much easier if I discovered a long lost wealthy relative with an empty apartment by the beach.

(Not my picture)

            This time spent in breakout rooms used to be the most stressful part of practice groups for me, and the reason why I avoided them so assiduously for years, but now, after the first few twinges of anxiety, I’ve come to really enjoy hearing everyone’s stories, and I’m less self-conscious about my broken Hebrew (though I still feel grumpy each time I make a mistake, which happens often).

            The most stressful part for me now is when we have to translate sentences from English to Hebrew, often using words I haven’t practiced recently (because I’m visiting practice groups at different levels from my own); but I’m getting used to laughing at my mistakes, and I’ve noticed that when I screw up, and laugh at myself, other people start to relax about their own mistakes. It’s almost like I’m doing a service.

            In some of the practice groups, after we go over some grammar from previous levels, we’ll read short articles together, or even just headlines, from online Hebrew language newspapers – often about food or travel or popular culture, so we can learn words we wouldn’t come across in class, like how to say “laundering money” in Hebrew. The words that are hardest to read in these articles are often borrowed from other languages. So, more often than not, our Israeli teachers will start to giggle when we can’t figure out how to pronounce “Mexico,”when it’s written in Hebrew letters.   

One of the lowest stress exercises that we do in practice group – though I can make anything feel stressful without really trying – is when the teacher puts an article on the screen and instead of asking us to read, and, God forbid, translate it, we just have to find one word at a time. It reminds me of being in first grade or so and realizing that there were English words I could just recognize on the page, without needing to sound them out, because they had become so familiar to me just by their shape.

            As a result of all of this time in the practice groups, I sometimes hear myself speaking in Hebrew, without having planned what to say ahead of time; the words just come out of my mouth, and I kind of look around the room, wondering who said that.

            And, really, during a summer where, aside from Mom, most of my in-person human interactions were at supermarkets or doctors’ offices, these practice groups gave me the chance to meet and chat with and learn from dozens of real people, who are fascinating and funny and weird and challenging. It’s still strange to me how real a community can feel, even when it only exists online; but in a way, the boundaries created by the computer (of time, and purpose, and mute buttons) creates a sense of safety that allows me to say what I really mean more often. Now, if only I could translate those safe boundaries into the real world…

“Pfft. Who needs the real world?”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my 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?

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The Colorful Masks

Posted on September 14, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

I want to hide myself,

or hide from myself.

And so, I wear a mask,

or masks,

to distract myself, and everyone else,

from what’s underneath.

I wish I could wear masks

made of beautiful gemstones.

Shiny yellows and reds and blues,

diamonds and silver and gold.

But most of my masks are only a smile or a laugh,

or indifference,

to hide the feelings

I can’t tolerate.

My masks look like me,

or so I’m told.

I don’t recognize myself

when I wear them.

When I see myself without a mask

I feel fragile,

and the masks protect me,

and strengthen me.

But maybe the masks are true just for me

and everyone else can see

the broken places in me,

and the scars,

and the open wounds.

I am afraid to find out

that people see me as I am,

despite the masks,

and they still don’t care,

or even notice,

and they simply continue to walk away from me.

Maybe all of the masks aren’t there to hide me

but to get attention,

so that someone will stop,

and see me.

But the masks never stay on long enough.

They fall and explode

like shattering glass.

I’m afraid that I will discover that the masks

are all that are left of me,

and underneath there is only

a storm of feelings I can’t control.

Maybe there is no real me without my colorful masks.

המסכוֹת הצבעוֹניוֹת

אַנִי רוֹצָה לְהַסתִיר אֶת עַצמִי

אוֹ לְהַסתִיר מְעַצמִי,

וְאַז אַנִי לוֹבֶשֶׁת מַסֵכָה,

אוֹ מַסֵכוֹת,

לְהַסִיחַ אֶת דַעַתִי, וְאֶת כֹּל הַשַׁאַר,

מִמָה שְׁמִתַחַת.

הָלְוַואי שְׁיָכוֹלתִי לִלבּוֹשׁ מַסֵכוֹת

מֵאָבנֵי חֵן יָפוֹת,

צְהוּבּוֹת וְאָדוּמוֹת וְכְּחוּלוֹת מָבְרִיקוֹת,

יְהָלוֹמִים וְכֶּסֶף וְזָהָב.

אַבַל רוֹב הָמַסֵכוֹת שֶׁלִי הֵן רַק חִיוּך אוֹ צְחוֹק,

אוֹ אָדִישׁוּת,

לְהָסתִיר לִי אֶת הַרְגָשׁוֹת

שְׁאַנִי לֹא יְכוֹלָה לִסְבּוֹל.

הָמַסֵכוֹת שֶׁלִי נִראוֹת כָּמוֹנִי,

אוֹ כַּךְ, לְפָחוֹת, אָמרוּ לִי.

אַנִי לֹא מְזָהָה אֶת עָצמִי

כְּשְׁאַנִי לוֹבֶשֶׁת אוֹתָן.

כְּשְׁאַנִי רוֹאָה אֶת עַצמִי בְּלִי מַסֵכָה,

אַנִי מָרגִישָׁה שַׁבִיר,

וְהַמַסֵכוֹת מַגִינוֹת אוֹתִי,

וְמָחְזִיקוֹת אוֹתִי.

אַבַל, אוּלַי הַמַסֵכוֹת הֵן אַמִיתִיוֹת רַק לִי,

וְכֹּל הַשַׁאַר יְכוֹלִים לִראוֹת

אֶת הַמְקוֹמוֹת הַשׁבוּרִים שֶׁלִי,

וְהַצַלַקוֹת,

וְהַפְּצַעִים הַפְּתוּחִים.

אַנִי מְפַחֶדֶת לְגָלוֹת

שְׁאַנַשִׁים רוֹאִים אֶת הַאַנִי הַאַמִיתִי

לַמְרוֹת הַמַסֵכוֹת שֶׁלִי,

וְעַדַיִין לֹא אֶכְפַּת לָהֶם,

אוֹ אַפִילוּ לָשִׂים לֵב,

וְהֵם פַּשׁוּט מָמְשִׁיכִים לְהִתְרַחֵק מִמֶנִי.

אוּלַי הַמַסֵכוֹת הֵן שַׁם לֹא כְּדֵי לְהַסתִיר אוֹתִי,

אֶלַא כְּדֵי לִמְשׁוֹך תשׂוֹמֶת לֵב.

כְּדֵי שְׁמִישְׁהוּ יַעַצוֹר

וְיִראֶה אוֹתִי.

אַבַל הַמַסֵכוֹת אַף פַּעַם לֹא נִשְׁאַרוֹת מַספִּיק זמַן.

הֵם נוֹפלִים וְמִתְפּוֹצְצִים

כְּמוֹ זכוּכִית שְׁמִתְנַפֶּצֶת.

אַנִי מְפַחֶדֶת שְׁאַנִי אֶגָלֶה שְׁהַמַסֵכוֹת

הֵן כֹּל מָה שְׁנִשׁאַר מִמֶנִי,

וְמִתַחַת יֵשׁ רַק סְעַרָת רְגָשׁוֹת שְׁאַנִי לֹא יְכוֹלָה לִשְׁלוֹט בָּה.

אוּלַי אֵין אַנִי אָמִיתִי, בְּלִי הַמַסֵכוֹת הַצִבְעוֹנִיוֹת שֶׁלִי.

“I have other ways of hiding. I can teach you.”

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my 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?

42 Comments

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How Do I Write a Prayer?

Posted on September 7, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

            This question came up after a conversation with my boss at the synagogue school, because she was trying to figure out a way to remind kids and parents about the value of building a community. I tend to speak without thinking (which is why I prefer writing, because it gives me a chance to revise my thoughts into something I can agree with), and I may have said something like, wouldn’t it be great if we had a prayer to say, in English, that specifically focuses on the value of being in community, so they can hear themselves saying it each week. My boss’ eyes lit up and she said, that would be great! Can you have it done before school starts?

The fact is, there are plenty of traditional Jewish prayers that imply the need for community, but I don’t know of any that do it explicitly, in a way that makes everyone realize that they need to show up on a regular basis to make the magic to work.

So, to start with, I need to figure out what I want to highlight about community in this prayer. The most obvious benefit of having a community, to me, is the way we can offer each other comfort and attention, and experience joy in each other’s company. Then, there are the invisible threads we create during those moments, that we can still feel later on when we’re alone, and that can hold us together through hard times. And, then, most concretely, there are the things we can accomplish together as a community that are impossible for any of us to do alone.

            My next task was to see what has already been said about community in the Jewish texts, since this prayer should be rooted in the tradition, rather than floating around untethered to anything that came before. I went to a site called Sefaria, where many people have created source sheets on different topics, quoting traditional Jewish texts. It has become a very popular site with Judaic studies teachers, but also with anyone who wants to research a particular Jewish topic, in depth, without having to, you know, read a lot of books in Hebrew and Aramaic.

            One of the first quotes I found was very familiar to me: I do a lesson with the kids each year on a saying by Rabbi Tarfon (from Pirkei Avot/Sayings of the Fathers) that has been made into a song: Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor, ve lo atah ben chorin le’hibatel mimena – “it’s not your responsibility to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” I like that it implies community, by saying that while we must do our part, and there will be others who can continue on after us.

Lo Alecha – https://youtu.be/04-tMMe4lrw?si=pKP4gDcRaubRIecz

            Another quote I use each year, because it’s from the book of Leviticus (the book of the Hebrew bible that I study with my students), also showed up on Sefaria: Ve’ahavta lerayecha kamocha, “love your neighbor as yourself.” This is another universal value, across religions and societies, though it feels impossible to live up to, which makes it more intimidating than inspiring, for me.

Then I found a familiar quote from the Talmud, Kol Yisrael arevim zeh la zeh, “all of Israel is accountable/responsible for/connected to each other,” which has become more obviously meaningful again since October 7th of last year, though I worry that it could feel alienating to some of our interfaith families.

A quote I found that I’d never heard of before is from Rabbi Soloveichik, a modern orthodox rabbi: “a community is not just a group of people working together for mutual benefit, but a metaphysical entity.” And that’s much closer to what I’m looking for, because I want people to feel like they are part of something larger than themselves and that they are essential to it.

            In my search for sources, I also came across some explanations for why certain traditional Jewish prayers (like the prayer for mourning) are only said when you have at least ten Jews together (ten men above Bar Mitzvah age, if you are orthodox). The idea that you’d need ten men to make a prayer legitimate always bothered me, because, of course, I couldn’t count as one of the ten to make a quorum. But now that I am part of a liberal Jewish community, where women do count, I’m a little more open to the idea that we benefit from having a group of people with us when we say certain prayers. The idea I liked most was: when ten people pray together the divine presence comes into the room, specifically the Shechinah, or the female face of God. There’s something beautiful about the idea that creating a community, even for a few minutes, brings in the presence of God. But it also makes practical sense to require a community in order to say something like the Mourner’s Kaddish in particular, because when people are grieving they often isolate themselves and they need to be reminded that they have a community around them to provide support and comfort.

            A few more things I found, or imagined, because I wrote them down in my notes but now I can’t seem to find the attributions: God is the Neshama, the soul, of which each one of us has a small part. We ask for rain even when only our neighbors need it, and we ask for guidance when it is a stranger who is lost, and we ask for abundance even when our own plates are full.

            But even though these are all wonderful ideas, I have no idea how to transform them into something short and sweet and to the point. I feel like I’m in danger of creating a Frankenstein-style prayer, and, if we believe Mary Shelly at least, those sorts of things never end well.

There are already some songs in our repertoire that I like very much and that capture aspects of what I’m looking for. Rabbi Menachem Creditor wrote a beautiful song based on a Jewish text, called, Olam Chesed Yibaneh, which he translates as “We will build this world with love,” and it emphasizes how people can come together to change the world.

Olam Chesed Yibaneh – https://youtu.be/ZHp-jcPlKIY?si=L8ieTeZ7z1g-397e

            There’s also a variation on a traditional prayer (Ahavat Olam) by another Rabbi, Rami Shapiro, that has been made into a beautiful song by Shir Yakov (yet another rabbi, I think), called “We are loved,” which focuses on how we find God in our relationships with other people.

We are loved – https://youtu.be/ovj5HD1jUws?si=DGaNl2T04aAeWW_6

            So, if I can’t write my own prayer, these are both good options. And, really, I’m sure it would be fine with my boss if I didn’t come up with something. In fact, since she’s currently drowning in a maelstrom of new school year details, I doubt she even remembers our conversation. But I do.

I worry, though, that not only don’t I know how to write a prayer, as opposed to a short blessing, I’m not sure if I’m even allowed to write one. Like, do I need permission from a rabbi? Or do I need to actually be a rabbi to write a prayer?

            My answer to this thorny question is to avoid it completely, so instead of calling it a prayer, maybe I can call it a kavanah (the Hebrew word for intention or direction). When I teach the official prayers to my students, we do all kinds of writing (and singing and dancing and drawing) to try to understand the purpose of each prayer, and then the kids offer their kavanot (the plural form of kavanah) at a family service, before they sing the prayer itself. So maybe I can think about this as writing a kavanah, a piece to be read before we say the real prayers, as a way to help us keep the idea of community in mind throughout the service.

             Here’s what I have so far:

We are part of a community that has existed for thousands of years, and embraces all of us, every version of us.

We renew and re-build this community with each word, each action, each gift of time, and attention, and compassion.

Each time we come together to pray or work or sing or study, we create invisible threads attaching us to one another, connections that can still be felt when we’re alone, and that can hold us together through hard times, like a net that will catch us when we fall.

We pray for everyone, because even when we aren’t struggling ourselves, we know that someone else is struggling and needs support.

We are all part of one soul, each carrying a small light within us, and when we come together we beam like the sun. Together we can accomplish more than we ever thought possible alone.

“I pray that one day I will be a real dog and get to eat chicken treats.”

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?

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The End of Summer

Posted on August 31, 2024 by rachelmankowitz

I’m not ready for the summer to end. I still have writing to do, and doctors’ appointments to go to, and lesson plans to revise. I still want to go to every online Hebrew practice group I possibly can, and see if more poems arrive (I have no idea what makes them bubble up, though there may be storks involved). I tried to get so much done this summer: rebuilding my exercise practice, working on nutrition, changing medications, taking continuing education social work classes, working on therapy, and writing, and Hebrew, and social skills, and on and on. But it’s not enough. I still don’t have a dog. The novel still isn’t finished. My health is still whatever it is. There are still tons of movies I want to see, and issues I wish I could resolve. I’m not ready to go back to work, and choir practice, and trying to find time for my writing in the spaces in between.

This is not my picture, but this is how I picture the poetry stork.

            I’m pretty sure I feel this way at the end of every summer, wishing for another month of “vacation” in order to get more of my work done, before the new school year can make me feel like I’m being tied to the back of a speeding train.

            I know I will enjoy getting back to the kids, and singing with the choir, but I also know that I will miss this feeling of open time, where I can do things at my own pace and give myself enough time to recover from one panic attack before embarking on the next one.

            Here’s hoping that all of the work I’ve done this summer will have shifted something inside of me, creating more space for my summer self to exist during the school year. Because I really want to feel more like myself all year, and not just for a few months at a time.

            Fingers crossed.

“Um, I don’t think I have fingers.”

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?

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