A Place Full of Potential

Reading “Breakdown in Aisle 5” by E. Kinney Zalesne in the November/December 2022 issue brought up childhood memories of going with my mother to small markets in Venezuela, where I was born. I learned how to order meat in the meat market, fish in the fish market and fruits and vegetables in the produce store. Much of my language about ingredients comes from that time and I don’t even know what some are called in English.

As a new immigrant to the United States in the 1990s, I often drove with my infant daughter to the supermarket when the days became very short in winter. I used the experience not only to see other people but to talk about colors, textures, names, etc., with her. Going to the supermarket was fun and therapeutic for me when I was lonely, so when I began seeing patients in the United States as a clinical psychologist, I sometimes suggested strolling through markets as a way to stave off loneliness.

Often, my patients reported feeling overwhelmed when they did go. They described episodes of intense anxiety or depression in which they would become emotionally paralyzed in front of 15 types of mayonnaise or 50 varieties of cereal. 

The supermarket seems to have the potential to be a calming and social experience as well as one of intense negative emotions, distress and isolation. Thanks for awakening these thoughts and memories in my mind.

Patricia Jaegerman
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The Tapestry of Israel

I was thrilled to read in the November/December issue “At This Youth Village, ‘We Are All One Family,’ ” about Ukrainian teens welcomed at Meir Shfeyah Youth Aliyah Village. As a participant in Young Judaea’s first summer in Israel program in 1951, I was privileged to spend a few extraordinary months based at Meir Shfeyah.

As I describe in my new book, Open Up Our Eyes: Moments That Shape Our Lives, I gained a teenager’s insight into the nascent state and the Jewish people when dysentery landed me in Meir Shfeyah’s infirmary. My roommate was a newly arrived boy from Iraq. We had no common language, but that didn’t keep us from joking and lifting each other’s spirits. That was my first encounter with a Jew of color as well as my introduction to the pluralistic tapestry of Israel and the Jewish people.

Kudos to Hadassah for supporting institutions like Meir Shfeyah.

Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff
Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Emanu-El
Westfield, N.J.

Two Children’s Books With Special Meaning 

I can’t wait to read with my grandchildren the wonderful books highlighted in the November/December issue’s roundup of new children’s titles—“Eight Books, Eight Nights”—two of which have special meaning to me. My daughter is the senior cantor at Stephen Wise Temple in Los Angeles, and my late mother was the first woman to celebrate a bat mitzvah on the West Coast, at Temple Sinai in Long Beach, Calif., in 1939. So the story of Rabbi Sally Priesand, in Sally Opened Doors: The Story of the First Woman Rabbi, is a must read for us.

So, too, is Fighting for YES! The Story of Disability Rights Activist Judith Heumann. Heumann has been one of my heroes since my law school days when, in 1977, I witnessed firsthand her 28-day protest and sit-in at a federal building in San Francisco, which led to the first federal civil rights protection for people with disabilities.
Jared Goldin
Long Beach, Calif.

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