Up-Front | First Person

The Perils Of ‘Potch Culture’

William Kolbrener
01/24/2012
William Kolbrener
Special To The Jewish Week

About a month ago, I ran into my son’s former kindergarten teacher in the streets of Jerusalem, where we live. “Pinchas misses you,” I told Rebbe Shlomo. He really does. Rebbe Shlomo taught Pinchas to make about seven different kinds of paper airplanes.  

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Among My Mother-In-Law’s Pots and Pans

Merri Ukraincik
01/17/2012
Merri Ukraincik
Special To The Jewish Week

To have known my mother-in-law was to have tasted her cooking.  Unfortunately, I never did.

I was an enigma to her, and she to me, from the very beginning.  With the former Yugoslavia in the throes of violent civil war, I found myself — an observant, then twenty-something girl from the Upper West Side — in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, in the fall of 1992. Her son and I met in the local Jewish community center, where I spent my days at work with Jewish refugees from neighboring Bosnia and he volunteered between medical school exams. 

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My Lunch Breaks With Joe

Avram Mlotek
12/27/2011
Avram Mlotek
Special To The Jewish Week

“Can I feed you?” he asked Joe, impatiently holding lunch and duly aware of the onlooker.

“Get the hell out of here!” Joe snarled, his face red. “You can tell the principal, damn it! Didn’t ask my sister for permission. Son-of-a-bitch,” Joe muttered under his breath.

Joe’s caretaker, Steve, waited for Joe to calm down. He then asked, “Would you like Avram to feed you?” pointing to me. “Of course I want him to feed me!” Joe shouted. “What do you think this is, a chicken coop?”

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