Stories
Big snows
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Dad and I walk to Van Cortlandt Park after a big snowfall, under a white sky. Is anyone else with us? I can’t remember. (My sister, older than I am by two and a half years, told me recently that I do not appear in any of her memories, exactly if I did not exist while we were growing up.)
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Cliff at the Seder table
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As a Jewish person, though not traditonally religious, I am far from alone in my sensitivity to any semblance of anti-Semitic sentiment. A British man with whom I became friendly in the 1970s told me that he knew I was Jewish because it was as plain as the nose on my face.
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Scents and Sensibility
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To our readers: Instead of the usual interview format, we are simply transcribing what Mr. Domestica related to us (as translated by an entomologist from the American Museum of Natural History who wishes to remain anonymous). He mentioned that he felt very proud of his Latin name . . .
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What I Want to Be When I Die
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From the time I first thought about planning for my death, I knew that I would not want to be buried in a casket lowered six feet down in the earth in the way that is traditional among Jewish people and has been for most other people in the U.S. for as far back as American-immigration history has been recorded.
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Commandments
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it was taking new steps to protect doctors, nurses and other health workers who have religious or moral objections to performing abortions or sex-change operations, or providing other medical services.
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A number of businesspeople have approached us regarding their conviction that they must turn away potential clients who they know have sinned in the eyes of God.
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Vacation Memories
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For several summers starting in the mid-1980s, my mother and I spent a week at a New York State park, usually Lake Taconic State Park, which is about two hours north of the city right off the Taconic State Parkway. In those days, before the Internet became ubiquitous, you had to reserve a cabin by telephone, beginning on a specific date in the spring.
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About
Miriam Levine Helbok has lived in the Bronx for her entire life, and she spent most of her working life with organizations in the borough as well. From 1985 until her retirement, she worked for the Bronx Zoo's magazine and then the H. W. Wilson company and their periodical Current Biography, for both as a writer and editor. Her recent work has appeared in the Bronx Memoir Project and on letters-to-the-editor pages across the city. In the months ahead of the 2020 election, Miriam wrote more than 5,000 get-out-the-vote letters to people across the United States under the auspices of the group Vote Forward.
