Election Nights

I have come to dread all election nights.

There's the part where I go to bed, trying not to think about it.

There's the part when my husband comes to bed somewhere between 1 and 4 AM. I wake up. I ask the latest. Or I ask not to know the latest yet. I'm not ready.

Inevitably he tells me. That's often the end of my sleep for the night. 

In the Mail

We got this in the mail yesterday.

First I was a little excited. Oh goody! Allies! 

Who Will Write Our History?

I saw a documentary a few weeks ago at The Museum Of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial To The Holocaust. When the screening was over, I left the museum and looked around me carefully to see who was nearby. Were there crowds of people of any kind, Free Palestine graffiti or t-shirts or anything else I would need to be careful navigating on my way to the garage. Then I checked myself... could anyone immediately tell I was Jewish? Could they tell by my clothes or jewelry or by anything I might be carrying? I had a lot of thoughts about this very post and I started recording them into my phone, but never within earshot of anyone else. 

10/7/26

It’s three years since life as I knew it changed. I haven’t gotten to that part of my story on here yet. It’s harder to tell than I first thought.

I happen to be on a flight with strangers today, feeling myself to be in a metaphorical world with strangers too in which people are actually celebrating today or others just have no idea what others of us are experiencing. An entire tribe in mourning and others just living their lives or dancing.

Flaw

 

I found the following video on one of my Whatsapp feeds. Its message is basically to speak up on behalf of Jews because if you don't, the bad guys will come for you next. 

The problem I'm having with this is that the message they are going for is a no-brainer. You should show up for people who are crying out for help. And just in case you're not a nice enough person to do that, here's a warning that if you don't, you're in danger yourself. 

Leaning into history

I've previously mentioned my March of the Living trip in high school. This trip to Jewish sites and concentration camps in Poland coincided with and enhanced a developmentally normal but very intense period of my life of Holocaust obsession. I simply couldn't learn enough. 

And then some time after that, I turned away from the obsession. One of my memories of the trip was when Deborah Lipstadt  (one of my now heroes) spoke to our group and said, "Many of you here today will now embrace your Jewish identity because of the anti-Semitism that you've learned about here. I want to encourage you to embrace it despite that."

Connectedness

This post was drafted on July 29 but revised on August 10.

I'm sitting in Ben Gurion airport, wired with caffeine to help me through the time zone shift and distracting myself from the complicated feelings about leaving by writing this blog post.

LN read my previous post, appreciated it, and then we started up a back and forth about some of what she appreciated about her trip here. The word she used again and again was "connectedness." She used this word to describe both the way people communicated with each other on Shabbat as well as our everyday interactions with strangers. She also said she felt a sense of joy permeating wherever we went. It might be surprising to see that in a country at war, but I think she's onto something. 

Unexpected Gifts

(Photos added on July 29)

I met LN when we were in seventh grade. I had just moved into Corvallis, Oregon and our English teacher, Mrs. Anderson, paired us together for a class project. 

Neither of us is exactly sure how this happened, but we somehow have stayed in touch through all these years. At some point we found ourselves both living on the east coast. I became a teacher. She became a pilot. We lived a distance from each other but still set aside one or two times each year to hike and catch up.

After October 7th I was dreading our first hike. 

Origin Story: high school and Oberlin College

Reminder: If you're new to this blog, please start at the beginning to know why I'm calling myself a Turkey Princess and to understand the purpose of this blog. 

It's time to talk more directly about my developing relationship with Israel. I've already told you about the man who asked me about my first trip. I also told you about my March of the Living trip and watching my Rabbi then make a point about remembering the Palestinian "refugees" whom he had worked with and who were not talked about very much on the trip.

Aesthetically Displeasing

My first trip to Israel was, I think, when I was about 12 years old. It was a simple family trip -- just me and my parents. We visited some old friends, went to some interesting sites. I honestly don't even have that clear of a memory of the trip.

When I came home, one of the elders in my community asked me what I thought. How was it? I knew instinctively that beneath his question was some kind of expectation. As a Jewish youth I was supposed to feel something particular, was supposed have found connection. I suppose he wanted me to say I couldn't wait to go back or that it felt like home. 

I have a stubborn streak.

Israel Museum

I went to the Israel Museum today. There was so much to see that I'm hoping to go back again next week to finish what I started. 

One of the first exhibits I went to was about pottery and archaeology. There was a long exhibition case showing different kinds of pottery shards from different periods. The idea was to walk along the case and notice differences from one period to the next.

Janusz Korzcak

 

Janusz Korzcak monument at Yad Vashem

I saw this monument at Yad Vashem (Israel's Holocast Museum and Research Center) this week. I'd seen  it before, but this was my first time actually knowing the story behind it. You can read about Janusz Korscak on Wikipedia, but I was introduced to him through a phenomenal podcast episode on Jewish History Nerds. 

Janusz spent a live utterly devoted to children. He studied (and created) pedagogy around them. He wrote books for them and about how to raise them. He ran an orphanage and he refused to abandon his orphans, even when he was given several chances of escaping death. He is literally the only Jew I've ever heard of from the Nazi period whom was given repeated chances of opting out, simply because he was so beloved even by the Polish public, but he refused to take it. As far as we know, he went to death side by side with his orphans. He taught them to dress well and hold their heads up with pride even to their deaths in Treblinka. 

Onions

Two days ago I took a couple of buses to Rehovot to visit my friend OW. Her family's long-term plan had always been to make aliyah. Once she had grandchildren in Israel, that solidified the plans which finally came to fruition in August 2023. She had no idea at the time just how much she'd be needed by then. With her son in the reserves, and her daughter-in-law working full-time, her family needed help around the clock. Her greater family needed her too. Back in NJ, we used to buy OW's baking -- challah, cakes, cookies... now she bakes instead for soldiers.

Obviously I wanted to go to visit my old friend, but the reason I specifically went when I did was because I knew she was scheduled to leave early Wednesday morning to volunteer on a farm. The usual workers are also in the army. So we got up early, went to the farm and spent two and a half hours picking onions. 

Living Rather Than Visiting

We plan to be here in Jerusalem for five weeks. It's a completely different trip from any we've ever taken before. We've been fortunate to have many opportunities for travel, but these are usually 10-14 day trips, often moving around all over the location we are visiting. 

As a teacher, I often have very open summers. I can schedule as much time as I choose for tutoring, visiting family and friends locally or not-so-locally, mini-adventures, exercise etc. etc. Meanwhile, my husband works a remote job that usually has him sitting at a desk in our home office. We are doing the exact same thing this summer but in Jerusalem instead of in New Jersey. 

Telling People That I'm Going To Israel

I've had this blog in mind for awhile but took a very long time to get started actually writing it. Summer vacation is here and now I have time. How appropriate then, that we decided to spend over a month this summer in Israel. 

At this point in my life, there are very few people (Jewish or not) with whom I interact outside of a Jewish context. The security guards at our school, for example, are wonderful, but I don't find myself worrying about what they are thinking of wondering if there is any way in which I need to be careful what I say. They have already shown they accept us. 

Shifting Identity

What it means to me to be a Jew has changed and evolved throughout my life. There have been times when I might have been uncertain if I liked it. There have been times when I sought spiritual inspiration elsewhere or times when I saw myself as more of a member of the community of humanity than of the Jewish community. There have been times when I have felt embarrassed by my community, even times when I've spoken lashon hara (smack). (I regret these now but I'll save that discussion for another time.) 

All that said, there has never been a time that I did not see myself as a Jew. It is who I am. Full stop. And it makes me proud to say that that is who I am. 

Why a Turkey Princess Is Inviting You Under a Table

(Slightly edited on July 3, 2026)

There is a famous and beloved rabbi known as Rebbe Nachman who lived in the late 1700's. A whole movement of Judaism has been structured around his teachings, many of which came in the form of stories.

One of these stories is called The Turkey Prince. You can find the story at the link, of course, but I'll put my own telling of it here:

There was once a prince who suddenly, out of the blue, declared that he was a turkey. He took off all his clothes, went under the table and began to peck at the crumbs. No one could understand why or convince him he was actually a prince and ask him to come out from under the table.