Kotkes, L. (2007, April 23). Starving to Please, Living on the edge. Binah Magazine

Excerpts:
Lily often talked of her need to be liked. How she strove for perfection in all she did. Lily picked at her food, hardly eating a thing.

The duchess wanted to invite me to an interview at Buckingham Palace. She needed a personal assistant.

“I want to be skinny. I don’t eat anymore so I can reach this goal. I am not bothering anyone. Nobody cares about me.”

A person who is starving to please can damage her body, mind and soul and eventually kill herself. Read more….

Kotkes, L. (2007, September 10). Ezras Nashim, A gate to my soul. Binah Magazine

Excerpts:
In my personal makom tefillah I discovered the gate to my soul, and let all my hope pour forth with a wish on my lips that a kindly angel would take my prayers to the gates of Heaven.

An ezras nashim is a place that we can create when we need it, and it is a place that exists in all the rooms of our life, as well as in those of the others.

Sarah, Rivkah, Rochel and Leah, our Imahos, davened in their tents, they davened on their journeys, they talked to Hashem wherever they were. Read more…

Kotkes, L. (2007, September 24). Holy Work, A challah memoir. Binah Magazine

Excerpts:
The first time I tasted challah at a Shabbos table I was astonished. I made such a fuss about it that now I laugh when I think back at how I must have appeared to my hosts.

There always seemed to me something missing; my soul was never totally happy with my efforts, and I could never understand why.

I see myself at my Shabbos table with my family. It is then that I cry. What a long way I have come; what a long way there is yet to go. Read more…

Kotkes, L. (2008, March 10). Long-Distance Longings, A love that stretches across the oceans. Binah Magazine

Excerpts:
The silence is tinged with sadness. “I was young and idealistic; I wanted to live in Eretz Yisrael; I actualized my parent’s dream.”

“Dad never experienced a sick day in his life. I was very upset the first time I found him sitting in a wheelchair, waiting for me; it was a distorted image, not how I wanted to see Dad.”

Read more….

Kotkes, L. (2008, September 22). The Journey, Probing the depths within. Binah Magazine

Excerpts:
Looking at the diary this morning shocked me; the imminence of my impending appointment finally woke me out of a semi-stupor. There’s much to do and not much time left.

Grant me an unsoiled area to start over with my relationships with a renewed spirit of forgiveness, like a sapling. Read more…

Kotkes, L. (2008, November 17). Wearing It Well, Crowning acceptance. Binah Magazine

Excerpts:
I treasure our conversation for its content, not its length, that is always highlighted by genuine, thoughtful questions designed to prompt me to discuss something significant that is going on in my life.

I said it was not in my budget to do so — and I was perfectly at peace with the answer.

All the years of being mevater, of letting go of what I thought I needed or wanted, of thoughts of asking for anything beyond our budget, fluttered into the air. Read more…

Kotkes, L. (2008, December 15). A Venetian Retreat, Journey to reality. Binah Magazine

Excerpts:
The yellow circle on his coat catches my eye. I know that this is the mark designating formal ghetto members.

I enjoy each visual delight, inhaling the atmosphere — the song of languages, colorful market stalls, the smells, the sights, the ambiance.

In the Ezras Nashim of one of the synagogues, I begin to shed tears mingled with deep emotion. In this place, Jewish women of the past have davened. Read more…

Kotkes, L. (2009, February 2). Frames of France, An artist’s impression. Binah Magazine

Excerpts:
I enjoy the wintry cloudless blue skies above and the invigorating, nippy air below. Many sights are familiar, yet many are new.

The vista from Rue des 2 Ponts, one of the many bridges that connect the Left and Right Banks, is panoramic, with the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

Languages mingle — French, Hebrew, Spanish, Yiddish, English — we Yidden will always find a point of connection wherever we are in the world. Read more…

Kotkes, L. (2009, March 12). Moscow: For the First Time. Hamodia Newspaper

Excerpts:
There have been times, going about my business in Eretz Yisrael, that I have mistakenly thought I was in Russia; today one can be anywhere in the country and come across a Russian immigrant, hear the rhythm of their language, and see their language on even the most basic Badatz Eidah Hachareidis yogurt cup.

Today, the largest concentration of Russian Jews lives in Israel, not in Russia. Israel is home to a core Russian-Jewish population of 825,000, the result of a mass exodus after Communism dissipated. But what has become of the Jews living in Russia? Read more…

Kotkes, L. (2009, May 11). Making Antwerp’s Acquaintance: A personal panorama. Binah Magazine

Excerpts:
The cream-colored trams, with the ting-ting of their bells, pass at their own speed.

As we get closer to Rav Leibish’s shul, we can feel the atmosphere of simchah in the air.

I want to ask so many questions but choose instead to remain quiet. My silence frees her spirit. She tells me of her lonely childhood. Read more…

Kotkes, L. (2009, July). Vistas of Vienna: Gateway to past and present European Jewry. Binah Magazine

Excerpts:
The locked doors and the concrete books that cannot be read are symbolic, “representing the loss of those who were murdered.”

The Great Synagogue was the only shul to survive the pogrom of Kristallnacht on November 9/10, 1938.

“Today, Vienna is the corridor of Europe,” she said, speaking of all the Jews who pass through Vienna.

As I stand before my husband’s great-grandfather’s kever; I feel a sense of mission. Read more…