Motherhood in the “Lean In” Era

by Gabrielle Birkner

In this report on nannies, nursery schools and national legislation, Birkner forecasts that the traditional Jewish preschool—retrofitted as a childcare center—may solve some of your problems. Then Elizabeth Mandel weighs in on the Jewish costs of Jewish education.

• The Jewish Costs of Jewish Education by Elizabeth Mandel

2013 Fiction Prize Winners

• Ironing by Sarah Seltzer
• On discovering a man I was secretly in love with wrote a poem portraying me in an unflattering light by Stephanie King
• Angel by Gail Hareven and translated from the Hebrew by Ora Cummings

Charlotte A. Newberger Poetry Prize

• Rose Has a New Walker by Karen Mandell
• And These Are Different Days by Julie Sugar
• Away from Babi Yar by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

Of an Honorable Antiquity

by Susan Schnur

It was a wonderful surprise when Lilith received a manuscript from the venerable poet laureate Maxine Kumin. “I’d been aware of Kumin’s feminist, and broadly maternal, sensibility, but not her Jewish one,” writes Schnur, “so I called PoBiz Farm to talk.”

• On Being Asked to Write a Poem for the Centenary of the Civil War by Maxine Kumin
• For My Great-Grandfather: A Message Long Overdue by Maxine Kumin

Flesh and Blood

by Penny Wolfson

The author inherited her father’s meat grinder, a reminder, literally, of flesh and blood. Now it sits on its side, an unused object of beauty, in her own kitchen, where she realizes that Jews think about meat more than most people.

Jewsies, Jewosity & Identity

by Zazi Pope

From Vienna to Appalachia, why did her forebears keep secrets and make such strange choices? The remarkably suppressed identity of her concert-star grandmother, and how Zazi Pope found it out.