Last week, I had dinner with a poet friend whom I hadn't seen in a long time. The subject of antisemitism came up in the context of a literary festival in Albany where two writers refused to be on a panel with a "Zionist." I guess I didn't use air quotes. My friend, who is hearing impaired, didn't get the inflection, didn't understand that I was being ironic. He replied, "Yes,
Jewish Genealogy After 10/7: When Never Is Now
As the world becomes a strange, hostile place, I have begun to look differently at the lives of the relatives lost in the Holocaust. I’m not abandoning the family ghosts who have stalked me for the dozen-odd years since I started unearthing them, but my approach to them has become more urgent. Six months after the Hamas massacre of 10/7, I'm trying to fathom what my ancestors
Antisemitism in the Digital Age: An Unfinished Memoir
How could this be happening again, in 2023? This quote from a story by Yair Rosenberg, whose excellent "Deep Shtetl" column appears in the Atlantic, is one of many such expressions of horror and shock. "I’m a child of Holocaust survivors,” one Israeli woman told reporters. “I grew up hearing stories of the camps. I thought those were the worst stories. These stories are worse.
A Father’s Gift: My Glamorous Middle Name
Among Ashkenazi Jews, it’s traditional to honor the dead by naming children after them, but considered bad luck to do so if there’s a chance that the relative so honored might still be alive. This made the immediate aftermath of World War II problematic for many with missing family members, Jewish naming-wise. When my older sister was born, our father was still uncertain
“I’ll Have What She’s Having”: A Museum Visit & Some Deli Musings
It had been a long time since I'd seen my friend, Margo—several decades, in fact. Growing up on the same block in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, we had been inseparable in childhood. Moves from the East Coast--I to Tucson, she to Los Angeles—and assorted life changes drifted us apart, but we recently reconnected on Facebook. My trip to LA to apply for my Austrian passport
Eating Los Angeles (and Brooklyn and Vienna)
I am recently back from a quick restaurant-packed trip to Los Angeles, where I went to apply for my Austrian passport. I gravitated towards food I craved because I can't get it in Tucson -- before my Tucson readers complain, I am challenging you to dispute my statement that there is not a single Jewish-style deli in town, good or bad -- and food that celebrated my new Austrian
Ich Bin Austrian: Some News and Some Musings
It was a long and circuitous route studded with emotional landmines, but today I can announce my arrival at the destination: My application for Austrian citizenship was approved. I was apprised of this fact via a phone call from the Austrian consulate in Los Angeles that I almost didn't answer. It was a late afternoon in January and I was watching Amy Schneider rout her
A Typo & A Tragedy: Tracing My Aunt Edith
As my CV will tell you, I am an editor as well as a writer. Correcting spelling and grammatical errors is second nature; I'm one of those people who proofreads restaurant menus (though not, you'll be relieved to hear, out loud when I'm with other people). So perhaps it's fitting that I should end up contemplating the fate of my namesake aunt because of a typo on a
A Tale of Three Siblings: Helena Neugasser, Siegmund Kornmehl, and Mina Allina
Though I am not as good as I'd like to be at keeping up with this blog—and not as good as Google would like me to be, according to my rankings--many people have nevertheless managed to find my posts over the years. Most recently, I heard from my cousin Rena, whom I'd been trying to locate for years. Those marital name changes wreak havoc on genealogy. She commented: I
Dual Citizenship: Pandemic Hair, DeJoy’s P.O. & Other Extremely Valid Reasons for Delay
It's been a while since I started working on my application for dual citizenship with Austria. So long that I forgot I had already filled out the preliminary forms and emailed them to the Austrian Consulate in Los Angeles. So long that I let my hair go Pandemic Grey and I am now I'm obsessing: If I put those grey-tressed images on my new Austrian passport (which I do not
Mustard’s Last Stand: Seeding a New Memoir
Like many writers, I enjoy crafting articles. It's fun to explore different topics and, after all this time, I still get a kick out of seeing my byline in different outlets. But publishing has changed in recent years, largely for the worse. Magazines and newspapers are constantly folding or getting bought out by large corporations, with a concomitant shift of staff and
Freud’s Parrot: My Love-Hate Relationship with Austria
I'm thinking about applying for dual citizenship with Austria. As of September 1, it is available to direct descendants of those killed or forced to leave the country when it became Nazified. I easily qualify on both sides of my family, with a mother and father born in Austria and residing there in 1938, not to mention grandparents who were unable to escape. As "dual"
My Father’s Great Escape: A Few Answers, Far More Questions
When I talk about my parents' forced departure from Vienna, I generally focus on the tragic outcome: the death of almost all their immediate family members, except for my father's brother, Fritz. On this Father's Day, I'd like to focus on the bravery -- combined with what must have been ingenuity and a bit of luck -- that got Paul Jarolim to America from Nazi-occupied
Paul & Fritz Jarolim: Post-War Rift & Reconciliation
Death and destruction take their toll on families in every war. Less common to major conflicts, World War II also scattered Jewish families to the winds, robbing them of the comfort of a homeland to return to -- at least not without mixed feelings. This was one factor in the rift between my father and his only surviving sibling. A Bit of Background My
The Jarolim Family: My Uncle Fritz & Military Resistance
When it comes to my mother's family, the topic of military service is fraught. I've written before about the fact that my grandfather Herman Rosenbaum served in World War I but was not rewarded for his service by such basic decency as not being deported from Austria and sent to his death. I've also written about how I disliked the idea of my family members as victims. It