Cataclysm from Left Field

I have heard it said that when cataclysmic change comes, it arrives from left field.

Despite the pronouncements of pundits and predictors, the events that change the course of history are often unheralded, flagged mostly by madmen and prophets.

Something is shifting in our universe. I felt it at the mid-point of this past winter. The earth has slipped from her axis and a hateful spirit has taken hold.

The cold of this past winter felt spiteful.

Spring felt far too slim, skimpy, evasive.

And this summer -- so long-awaited -- is not the summer of years past. It is filled with angst and what is increasingly referred to as "extreme weather" -- rain that is aggressive, heat that feels nuclear, a malicious void where cosmic benevolence used to be.

I am up, sleepless, unable to rest, keeping vigil, reading news, headlines, posts on Facebook, statements that arrive via email, analyses, Op-Eds, blogs, Breaking News alerts, Red Alert warnings of Hamas missiles launched and a steady stream of images coming out of the place that is at the epicenter of my soul: Israel.

And its heart of hearts: Jerusalem.

There is a malevolence afoot now -- not only in the murderous intent of Hamas -- but in the complicity of countries filled with Jew-haters who are all-too-eager to use this so-called "conflict" to give voice to their evil passions, which have evidently been simmering beneath the surface of their civility all along.

We knew/I knew, that the golden age of our security had to end. We knew/I knew that the ability for a Jew to be a heedless, careless, fancy-free citizen of the world had an expiration date stamped on it.

I don't mean that I am imperiled in New York City today, right here, right now but I do know that a tide has turned.

The genie of European anti-Semitism has been released and there is no stuffing it back into the bottle; no way to pretend we hadn't seen it. Of course, Europe is not the only new/old Ground Zero of hatred and hostility to Jews, but -- soaked with Jewish blood -- it does it deserves special mention.

The violent rallies with bloodthirsty proclamations -- Death to the Jews! and similar slogans -- stun us in their profusion, in their magnitude, in their suddenness.

It is as if we have been drugged for decades, sleeping through the dress rehearsal for this world-wide scene shift.

It is late and I am tired. I am terrified. I am heartbroken. I cannot bear the photographs of the slain Israeli soldiers, in numbers too high to accept. They are my loss, members of my family and I cannot pretend that the grief I feel for them is equivalent to the sorrow I feel for the innocent Palestinian victims of the hellbent Hamas fighters.

I bemoan -- as do all people of conscience -- the senseless loss of life, their suffering and the mess of the situation...so awful, so old, so eternal. I understand their cruel fate; how their leaders chose to make them sacrifices out of spite.

But personal loss is always different. It has to be. That is the way the human animal is built. Why should we pretend otherwise?

I scream into the abyss of the conscience of the world:

What do you not understand? How can you fail to see the evil unfolding before you?

At this time, the force of my fears, my love and the entirety of my vigilance is focused on my family, my people, my tribe -- the historic Children of Israel who have somehow made it into the second millennium. At this time, the dangerous winds of the new/old extreme weather threaten us and we run for shelter. How, O Lord, do we stay safe in this new time and space? What have we learned through persecution and pogrom, through death camps and deportations, through hateful rhetoric and harmful legislation? What gifts has modernity given us in our existential battle? What is our special status as American Jews? Or is that an illusion that is about to be shattered?

It is late.  It is late in New York but a new day is dawning in Israel. I split my attention between computer screens, reading frightening new reports, alarming predictions, protestations over yesterday's disturbing ban on air travel to and from Israel.

Guardian of Israel, do not sleep. Stay awake. Keep vigil. Protect us.

The Thinking/Writing Cure

At 1:30 a.m. I was wrested from my dreams by an insistently barking Pomeranian who just turned 14, which makes him quite an elderly canine.

Alfie, a master communicator, had something to tell me relating to business that was not completed during his failed late night walk with HOBB.

There had been a torrential downpour and Alfie is a bit of a prima donna, so he stubbornly sat in the lobby of the Urban Bungalow, not wishing to sully his perfect blond coat.

In the middle of the night he realized the error of his ways and improvised in the bathroom. A neat freak, he needed me to know.

That is how I found myself wide away shortly after midnight, though I spent a futile hour trying to will myself back to sleep. I should not have even bothered. With a resolute tossing back of the blankets, I bounded out of bed and began my workday around 3 a.m.

Through I did grouse and call Alfie some choice names, though I even felt sorry for myself initially, the minute I sat down in front of my computer, I was reminded of the advantages of working in the middle of the night, when the distractions of the world fall away.

And of something else: the easy flow of ideas when sleep has allowed my mind to loosen its familiar bonds.

So I've been up and working for hours. Seeing me online, Big Babe in Berlin sent me a Skype invitation and we had a lovely chat. A few clients were up as well and emails were exchanged. I took care of wedding details and of last-minute arrangements for Middle Babe's Bridal Shower this weekend. I got a jumpstart on the news from Israel, the latest chapter in an ongoing existential saga, as old as the Bible.

And I've been thinking of this time before the marriage of my middle child, of what such a union means, of the idea of a lifelong love relationship, of her beautiful bond with her Gentleman Caller -- soon to be my son-in-law.

I've been thinking of what it means to have raised a child who now believes in marriage, against statistical evidence that we are in a post-marital era, or at least a marriage-optional era.

I've been thinking of what it means to be a modern mother of the bride, of my role in supporting my daughter as she plans her wedding in an admirable hands-on way, of the hard work that happened -- during the day as well as the middle of the night -- to enable this wedding.

There is pride in being able to provide for one's child.

And I know that Middle Babe feels proud of the hard work she has done, just as I gaze at her efforts with admiration and wonder. My daughter is no one's diva, no Disney Princess for a day. She has approached her wedding with the same determined focus with which she regards her challenging work at a non-profit organization.

She has inspired me throughout this year of planning, which had its difficult moments. With six weeks to go, we have drawn closer, united in purpose.

Wedding guests are correct to be touched by the fresh, hopeful love and dreams of a bride and groom.

Beyond the details of the day -- flowers, food, the choice of music, the venue, the colors of the bridal party -- there is the fact of an important new venture being launched, two people pledging their love and loyalty for life, forming a fortress for one another in an often-inhospitable world.

As the sun rises over Morningside Heights, it strikes me that the most enduring monument one can build in this world is a home which is a sanctuary with gates that open to the great outdoors and a private footpath for the master and mistress of the manor which leads to their inner sanctum, their holy of holies.

Recovery of Writings Past

While searching online today for something I had written a couple of years ago, I inadvertently found an essay/book review of Simone Zelitch's work, Louisa that I had entirely forgotten about. I read it with shameless glee, sobered only by two terrible details: the rabbi I refer to as metaphysical has since been revealed to be a sexual predator, and the host of the sumptuous breakfast at the King David Hotel was revealed to have been a crook, his generosity funded by white collar crime. Still, finding this essay now is a gift. In the midst of an unusually stressful time in my personal life as well as that of the Jewish people, reading about my magical midnight foray in Jerusalem on a summer night in 1998 provided a much-welcome window into a simpler time. The timing also seems unusually apt as I just published my novella, The Jerusalem Lover, yesterday morning. This essay brings me back to that era before 9/11, which provides one of the frames for The Jerusalem Lover. We were careless. We were clueless. I linger in the memory of that moment and share it with you, here:

At four in the morning, a solemn breeze wafted through the ancient Hurva synagogue, raising the tarpaulin-like roof, ruffling the hair and garments of the hundreds who were gathered inside, sitting cross-legged on the cold, stone floor. It was Shavuot night, 1998, the setting was Jerusalem, and I was on the third leg of my night-long tikkun, the traditional learning marathon held on the first night of the holiday that commemorates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people.

The evening had begun at a friend's house in Baka and moved on to Yakar, the spirited, soulful synagogue located in the Old Katamon neighborhood. Now I had come to the Hurva, located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, to hear the metaphysical rabbi, Mordechai Gafni.

As Gafni spoke, the sun rose over the ancient city of Jerusalem As the sky lightened at five, I rose and left the Hurva, making my way through winding streets until I met the members of my davening group, N'shei Ha-Kotel, the Women of the Wall. Gathering together, we commenced our recitation of shacharit, the morning prayers.

While we davened, streams of Jews poured onto the Kotel plaza, black-hat and bohemian alike. This parade of people had come from every corner of Jerusalem–and beyond–in commemoration of the pilgrimages made in the time of the ancient Temple.

As the hour approached seven, I made my way out of the Old City and towards the King David Hotel. It was on the hotel's capacious lawn that I concluded mytikkun leil Shavuot–tired yet exhilarated–at a reception thrown by family friends, feasting on traditional holiday fare: cheesecake, blintzes, rice pudding with raisins, pie, custard and all manner of dairy treats.

There is an otherworldly magic to staying up all night, studying Jewish texts. There is a surprising sense of revelation to studying–once again, the Ten Commandments, and finding new insights and commentaries. And there is the profound beauty of the Book of Ruth, which tells the story of the righteous Moabite woman Ruth, one of history's best known Jews-by-choice, great-grandmother of King David and ancestor of the Messiah.

Widowed as a young woman, Ruth "cleaves" to Naomi, her Jewish mother-in-law, pledging complete loyalty to her tradition and people. Though Naomi urges her to return to her Moabite kinsmen, Ruth refuses, stating her now-immortal vow:

Entreat me not to leave you, and do not tell me to return from following after you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge; your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.

These oft-quoted words have inspired humankind over the course of centuries. Evidently, they took up residence within the literary imagination of Simone Zelitch. The result is her remarkable novel, Louisa , which offers a modern retelling of the story of Ruth, set in post-World War II Palestine, with ample flashbacks to Szeged and Budapest, Hungary.

Louisa offers us the story of the relationship between Nora and Louisa, a latter-day Naomi and Ruth. Louisa is a young German Christian woman who falls in love with Gabor Gratz, an inscrutable and restless young Jewish composer. Finding herself pregnant by him, they marry, at the insistence of Gabor's mother, Nora. The pregnancy does not survive; neither does Gabor. As the Jews are hunted throughout Budapest, Nora seeks refuge in the cellar of Louisa's home and there waits out the end of the war before being transported to Palestine.

The problem is, Louisa refuses to leave her bitter and grief-stricken mother-in-law and gains passage with Nora to Palestine. Landing at a kibbutz, she endures hatred and suspicion (some refugees swear they saw her working as a Nazi guard at a concentration camp), works in the fruit orchard, studies Hebrew and begins studying for conversion with the kibbutz rabbi.

She also does some covert work, tracking down Nora's beloved cousin Bela (now known as Jonah), with whom Nora grew up in Hungary. Bela immigrated to Palestine prior to the war and had tried to convince Nora to do likewise. His mother and sister were killed in the course of the war. Arabs murdered Leah, his young French-Israeli wife, outside of their kibbutz.

Bela/Jonah represents the Boaz character in the Ruth story, the older kinsman of Naomi whom Ruth marries to carry on the family legacy. Claiming to work in the orchards well beyond the harvesting season, Louisa finds Bela/Jonah, works for him and eventually falls in love with him. They marry, bear a child named Tamar who carries on Bela's bloodline and Louisa keeps her pledge to Nora to redeem Gabor's death by having children, bringing new life into the Jewish people.

Zelitch's Nora is hardly an endearing character. She is bitter, similar to the biblical Naomi who asked that her name be changed to Mara, bitter one. She is frequently unkind to Louisa. She misses out on love and its fulfillment. She makes Louisa all the more heroic.

Yet Zelitch allows us to see Louisa's devotion to her mother-in-law in a different vein. Louisa somehow intuits that becoming a Jew and going to Palestine are her destiny. She means the words "Your people are my people" quite literally. Her motivating force is not altruism, but a realist grasp of her fate.

The skillful weaving of the Ruth and Naomi theme into Louisa is a testament to Zelitch's keen understanding of the text. The work is a literary tour de force, jumping continents, cultures and chronological boundaries. It raises the interesting question of the Messiah's ancestry and the process ofteshuva, repentance. It asks us to accept the German-Christian Louisa's conversion and active role in perpetuating a Jewish bloodline, as an act of tikkun(restoration) for the sins of her kinsmen during the Shoah.

Louisa and Shavuot share many themes: the power of forgiveness and good deeds, and their potential for repairing the world. The Book of Ruth, however, has an additional twist, for it hints at an instruction manual for repairing the world. The instruction manual of course, is Jewish Law, which is the axis upon which the Ruth narrative turns. One of the many fascinating aspects of the Book of Ruth is we get to see the Torah's laws in action. 

One example of this is when Boaz observes the laws of Tzedekah and instructs his workers to let ample grain fall through their hands so that the poor (in this case Ruth) may glean in the fields. In these instances and others it becomes apparent that what appears to be coincidence is really God's handiwork in the form of Jewish law. Which makes Louisa and the Book of Ruth perfect reading on Shavuot; a holiday which celebrates the giving of the Torah and looks forward to a world redeemed. 

Reprinted with permission from the AVI CHAI Bookshelf, where birthright israel alumni can order free books and periodicals.

Dog Therapy

Last night, at the launch event for Ari's new book at the Corner Bookstore in NYC, the conversation turned to dogs because someone had shown up for the event with her surprisingly well-groomed and behaved pooch.

The discussants included friends of mine who were newly single in mid-life. We spoke about the spirituality of dogs and their function as social networkers.

"If you want to meet new people, just get a dog," I advised, recounting the numerous instances of new (and mostly fascinating) people I have met while walking Alfie and Nala the Pomeranians in Manhattan.

Single people meeting through dog-walking is a charming subplot for many a film but as a much-married woman, the surprise benefit for me has been in the number of deep and resonant conversations I have had with other women while we stroll with our pups along Morningside Drive.

And by other women, I am not talking about friends.

I am speaking here of people I have never met before in my life.

It starts with a friendly introduction by our respective dogs -- butt sniffing, jumping, playful interaction -- and half an hour later I am on my way home, marveling at the spontaneous human bond that was just formed.

I am trying to understand how it happens. My dogs stop to play with another dog, invariably that of a woman. The owner and I exchange casual pleasantries and inquire about each other's pooches. I ask a leading question or two. I get a feeling.

Then I throw out a question and we are off and running.

Today is a perfect case in point. The power of the sunshine lured me outdoors even before my dogs thought to beg for a walk. I nearly skipped down W116th Street to Morningside Drive, half-blinded by the radiance. Moments after arriving there, a young German Shepherd appeared, accompanied by a woman with a colorful paisley frock.

While our dogs cavorted, we had an instantly intimate conversation about our work and our motherhood. We spoke about the choices and compromises we made and how we feel about them. We spoke about our husbands' careers and where our ambition fits in. We spoke about the raising of sons. We spoke about ourselves.

Even after our dogs settled down with one another, we chatted.

It was like being served a delicious entree without the boring appetizer.

We Facebook friended each other before parting. I felt lucky to have been thus connected to a fascinating stranger who is not so strange to me after all.

As I walked home I thought further about our conversation and concluded that I owed part of our connection to the power of sisterhood, that eternal bond that women have with one another; the compulsion to connect and compare life stories and grow from one another.

It is a gift when it happens and I own the fact that I am a proactive pursuer of connections, seeking to share, believing in the commonality of human experience and my own intuition.

But credit must be given to the secret agents of social networking so I thank my furry little friends for enabling this instance of solidarity on a sunny Friday morning on Manhattan's Morningside Heights.

Call me Crazy, But...

For every wonderful, responsible, caring, completely sane woman who has been called "crazy" stupid" "bitch," or all the above by the guy in her life simply because she is really, really upset about something for more than, say, three minutes, some strong, sisterly advice:

Crazy means shut up, I don't want to hear your pain.

Stupid means shut up, you are asking me to be accountable.

Bitch means shut up, you are ruining my fun. 

And some more advice: if things are at the point where someone is calling you these -- or other -- names, it is time to access your inner bitch and really go crazy...for your own good.

Turn into a maniac of self-actualization. Be a lunatic of reinvention. Be a batty advocate for your own happiness.

Girlfriend, a name-calling partner is no partner.

Recognize. And make some decisions.

Here's my professional diagnosis: you haven't been crazy enough.

So go mental.

To do anything less is stupid.

The Day after Mother's Day

Last week, in the midst of a phone convo with a super-successful, beautiful and high-spirited friend of mine, I confessed to having fallen into a funk.

My candor acted as a key into an inner chamber where truth resided; in an instant, my friend dropped her upbeat demeanor and shared that she, too, had been depressed as of late.

The thing is, our lives are hardly mirror images, though we are both writers. In fact, we represent two distinct groups: I am a mother of three while my friend is single and childless.

And yet...and yet...we both found ourselves in this age and stage of life feeling sad, out of balance, wondering if it was yet possible to grab hold of our dreams.

Our conversation continued while I took the dogs out for a walk, texted two of my three kids, shopped at a local food market and cooked dinner. She chatted from her couch, where she ate salad. The distinctively different backgrounds of our conversation brought our dissimilar situations into starker relief.

She was responsible to no one and could focus on our call while I was a multi-tasking maniac. I had the family and all that comes with it; she was alone but free to pursue her personal and professional goals in an uncompromised way.

As the lack of family looms large for her and she originally viewed my life as belonging to someone who had the very thing she craved -- i.e. -- as someone who "had it all" -- she was astonished to hear the depths of my sadness.

She hadn't imagined that the very thing I lacked could cause me such pain.

We spoke for nearly two hours, examining how it was both personal choice and factors outside our control that shaped our lives' path. We shared a bracing moment of female rage against the unfair advantage that men had, their ability to grab what they want, whether it was a young wife when they reached middle aged, or an unimpeded path to their own professional success.

Women often are forced to make choices that men do not have to make.

My beautiful loving friend expressed sorrow for the mate and children she did not (yet) have. I mourned work that hadn't yet been published.

Sharing our separate sadness, we realized that we were hardly separated by our external differences.

What we shared was a sense of incompletion. Gazing at it together, it felt less like an abyss and more like an opportunity.

Organically, we began encouraging the other, offering insight and suggestions, analyzing the other's position. We helped each other contextualize the lives we had; we did not deny that the sadness was legitimate but sought a proactive response. We became each other's cheerleaders and project managers. We lifted each other up.

So it is with the best of female friendships.

In this realm, I am truly blessed and hope I have given as well as I have received.

On the day after Mother's Day, I salute the sisterhood that is the source of sustenance for those who hold the world aloft. On this day forward, I toast the power of candor and the bravery it takes to confess our failures to one another so that we might recover the key to our successful transcendence.

The Power of the Yenta (Mother's Day Edition)

I have a big mouth, by which I mean that I am prone to sharing, perhaps even over-sharing personal thoughts and experiences with friends and strangers alike.

And over the 50-plus years of my life, I have found that this penchant is valuable...as it opens the door for others to share and share alike.

As a writer, I have been compelled to share my truth. Sometimes loudly.

The reward is that it empowers others to share theirs back.

You see, my hunch is that often, the upsetting thought or experience I am going through is not uniquely my own. The insight I have just gained, or even, the hunch that I have, might just be universal.

So, I put it out there...and reap the results.

This year has been a significant year in the Urban Bungalow. Little Babe left for college, which means that HOBB and I are now officially Empty Nesters.

Aside from one maudlin weekend before we drove him to Muhlenberg College and I could not stop crying thinking that my youngest was now ready for college, I have celebrated this transition as I have loved the immersive, holistic and sometimes overwhelming fact of my motherhood and felt prepared for the next phase.

I have no regrets. I cannot separate the experience of raising my three kids -- now nearly 30, 26 and 19 -- from the person I am today. Becoming a mom at 23, my entire adult life was intertwined with my mommyhood. It was bumpy and it was messy and we did not prepare for this financially, but what an adventure, watching three remarkable people unfold, become themselves, because of me and despite of me, because of us and despite us.

There has been also the promise of the Empty Nest, an opportunity to reclaim that which I have put on hold. There are my deferred dreams, twinkling tantalizingly on the horizon. There has been the delicious prospect of dating HOBB, reclaiming or even discovering anew the power of our partnership. There has been the promise of creative collaboration.

I have had a lot invested in this moment.

So, when I was overwhelmed by feelings of sadness and rage lately, I was surprised.

The year began with such promise. I was soaring. Why did I crash?

So, I put on my Yenta lenses. I began sharing. I began hearing.

I started realizing I was onto something.

I realized I was hardly alone.

Here is my Huffington Post column for Mother's Day, written for every working mother married to a wonderful man who finds herself crashing just about now, at the end of the first "semester" of the Empty Nest.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shira-dicker/a-mothers-day-gift-idea-f_b_5289277.html

I think I nailed a nugget of truth for women such as myself.

So, return the Yenta favor. Write and share your feelings.

And if you disagree with what I wrote, let me know as well.

Happy Mother's Day!

In the Aftermath of the Crash

Back in the interminable land of February in this harshest of winters, I had a momentary, startling awareness that the oppressive cold and relentless grey were temporary afflictions and in the blink of an eye, summer would be upon us.

This winter caused a crimp in our creature comforts here in New York. Going outside was perilous...or at least unpleasant. Adults relived that cumbersome bundled-up feeling from childhood. Mere coats did not suffice; layers were needed to withstand the weather.

But this past winter was not just about inconvenience. For all but those who inexplicably deny global warming, there was the sad and scary acknowledgement that nature was striking back at humankind.

This winter felt, more than anything, like a warning of worse things to come.

On Wednesday mornings I teach a class in ethical communications to student clergy at a Westchester seminary. This is the second time I am teaching this class; it is one I created right after graduating from Columbia Journalism School three years ago.

One of my students is consumed with pre-apocalyptic thoughts; he sees imminent worldwide economic and ecological collapse. He speaks of the need to grieve for the planet. He feels Judaism has an approach for dealing with what is happening now, what is about to happen, the struggle to come.

My student observes me as well. Twice, he suggested that I need to slow down. My life was too busy, he said. Moving so quickly, ideas could not take root, he said.

Astonished by his insight, wondering if I ought to act huffy and offended and old school teacher-like, I have instead paused to give serious weight to his words.

He is right. I am way too busy. I need to slow down, let my ideas take root.

But need alone does not govern my life.  There are the responsibilities of adult life, the compromises that must inevitably be made. My student is wise but young, closest in age to my youngest child.

When life is overfull, with dramatic events, to boot, there is a paradoxical sense of time standing still. At 2 in the morning I am strangely awake, despite a fantastically busy day, trying to remember what took place this winter and coming up blank.

I sit in the place of blankness for while. The winter months seem like one grey, undifferentiated mass. Did anything actually happen? Looking backwards gives me a bleak and lonely feeling. I don't like returning to the very recent past.

I want to move forward into the warm light.

And then I recall my exuberant drum lessons with Mike at Funkadelic studios, the Beatles, Genesis, Chicago, Rolling Stones, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bad Company songs we played, the new licks and fills I learned, the hilarious Saturday night rock-out jam session that HOBB* attended, cello in tow. There was dancing at the Iguana Club, the Culture Club and the JCC's Swing Remix Parties, shows for $4 through Play-by-Play. There was music at The Sidewalk Cafe, City Winery, Cleopatra's Needle. I remember transcendent acupuncture sessions with the intuitive Dr. Liu,where my thoughts had a chance to broaden, deepen and bloom; exquisitely painful massages by Don the therapist. I remember the Wednesday morning classes I taught, the projects I have worked on. There was the joy of Purim and the hard work of Passover, the books I read, magazines devoured, movies I saw, shows and museum exhibitions and events I attended. There was one wacky and inspired Sunday road trip with a dear friend to Philadelphia to museum hop, another memorable train ride back from DC with a rabbi friend involving a bottle of wine and lots of gossip. There were weekly Scrabble matches with HOBB. There were dinners with friends (though fewer than usual), open Mic performances, haircuts and karaoke nights. There were weekly therapy sessions where I delved into deep examination of my life. There were writing project proposals drafted. There were columns written and published.

The Je Ne Sais Quoi of Karaoke!

Hi Bungaleers!

My column on why I love karaoke... Enjoy!

And that is me singing in a Tokyo karaoke bar in May.

Hope you will come sing with me!

The Return to the Kingdom by the Sea

On Friday evenings, I typically read the Weekend section of the New York Times in a state of supreme FOMO.*

So many wonderful things going on...and all at the same time!!!!! How can I even begin to make a dent in the richness of Manhattan's cultural offerings??? How can I even hope to be a cultivated person when I am so constrained by the limitations of time and the fact of being only one person with an extremely busy professional (and social!!) life???

I am an anxious wreck as I scour the articles, the ads and the listings, creating a week's worth of destinations in my head because it is, after all, Shabbat, and I cannot write anything down and besides, I'm in the middle of my weekly Scrabble game with HOBB.**

I sigh loudly. I rustle the paper. I announce the opening of films and shows, limited engagements, cabaret acts of note, exhibitions, lectures, walking tours and other offerings guaranteed to improve my life and my husband's life as well as the lives of everyone on the planet.

Trapped within the labyrinth of the Weekend section this past Friday night, I let out a shout that startled HOBB in the midst of his Scrabble move.  The Little Prince exhibition was opening at the Morgan Library and Museum while the Edgar Allan Poe exhibit was closing.

I had one golden day to see both.

And damn it, nothing was going to stop me.

Not the blood-freezing cold, not the gunmetal skies, not the appointments that dotted my day like push-pins on a bulletin board, starting with my personal training session at 9 am and ending with a client call at 7 at night.

Not the gala @ the JCC the previous night that had me downing tequila and dancing like one possessed.

Not the morning-after hangover.

Not the unexpected shut-down of the East Side trains (the 4, 5 and 6 subway lines all ground to a halt).

Not the syllabus I was supposed to deliver last week for a graduate school course I am teaching this spring.

Not the fact that I was on my own as HOBB was spending this Sunday afternoon playing with an amateur orchestra and I hadn't invited anyone to come with me.

And certainly not the severe sickness that turned my nose into a raw, red faucet, clogged my ears and made my limbs feel as if someone had given me noogies for the past week.

I arrived at the Morgan, shivering and clutching a soggy handkerchief. Having walked from Grand Central Station along a strangely unpopulated Madison Avenue, I was awash in a familiar, yet long-ago feeling.

It was akin to a premonition, creepy but in a fantastic way.

I call it the Poe effect.

Even before I reached the regal entrance of the Morgan, I was returned to that realm of imprisoning introspection, feverish speculation, unchecked murderous impulses, suspicion, dreadful secrets, dying love, entombed loved ones.

As I stepped over sodden snowbanks and clutched my collar against the cold, I felt the deliciously icy hand of terror grip my heart.

My dearest childhood literary companion awaited me, proud to point out how many people came to see his show on its very last day.

He wanted me to know that the show was a hot ticket in the Manhattan where he had lived many and many a year ago.

Bathed in welcome warmth, I tip-toed through the exhibit gallery, peering into showcases and reading captions of manuscripts and letters and newspaper clippings and book pages. From every wall, the tragic eyes of Edgar Allan Poe gazed, accusatory and anxious. The room was filled with palpable Poe-love. Parents pointed out famous poems to young children, hipsters clustered over drawings with showy interest, solitary visitors such as myself moved dreamily. Discovering the extent to which Poe had influenced some of my other favorite authors -- Nabokov, Wilde, Whitman, among them -- I trembled with excitement, reading their words of praise, feeling proud to be in their number.

Sneezing frequently, a handkerchief pressed to my nose, I stalked the exhibition, my sickness strengthening my sense of solidarity with Poe. My emotions careened wildly. I felt like the crazy person at the museum, the wacko other visitors swerve to avoid.

With a joy that inspired giddy laughter, I found out how Lolita had embedded Poe-prints throughout, beginning with Humbert's confessional storytelling style and the basic frame of the book: his obsessive love for a child.  I saw the original script for the film version, containing Poe allusions that ended up on the cutting floor, Kubrick's surgery, infuriating Nabokov.

I realized something glaringly obvious that I had never noticed, even after more than six readings: Humbert's first love is named...Annabel.

I congratulated myself on my good literary taste. Closing my eyes, I was able to recapture that rush that comes from discovering a greatness you never knew existed -- an aspect of the world you had not imagined, a treat that makes life delicious and is available whenever you want it.

Poe was my passion as a nine-year-old newly returned to the United States after a year in Israel. He was my closest companion, dwelling in the dark realm that was underneath the wallpaper in my bedroom, beneath the floorboard of my closet. He confirmed the mystery that I intuited; he knew that a house at night was swirling with spirits, he detailed obsession, longing, guilt, loneliness, spite.

The previous year had introduced me to Dickens and White, Twain and Carroll...in their entirety. Bookish by nature, living in a country without functional television, the daily adventure of exploring Israel was matched in intensity by my literary sojourns in the apartment of a great philosopher with a respectable English library.

Poe had been on the shelf of my Jerusalem apartment but I was afraid. The volume of his work felt sinister. The words on the page were ominous, portals to a place I was not yet ready to enter.

But that which frightened me also beckoned. Poe was the dank cellar I could not resist exploring.

When I returned back to America, I opened the creaky door and began my descent.

In an instant, I knew Poe. His work demanded that of the reader. He was an intimate -- my brother or alter-ego. His work was inseparable from himself and I felt inseparable from him. To read his sentences was to be in a conversation with him, or to eavesdrop on his inner monologue, to whisper sentence fragments back in a hot, sticky breath.

Or to become blood brothers of sorts, co-conspirators, con-artists of artistry.

To read Poe is to be Poe; marvelously morbid mind so familiar, so beloved.

The swirling madness, his sadness, I drank it in, organic, rich and life-giving, so much more real than the careful order of my childhood, the roster of rules, the belief in the ordinary, the schedules that had to be kept, the punishments for transgression.

The world of my peers was a flimsy reality I needed to visit during the school week, utterly insignificant, save for my new best friend, a moody girl named Eileen who also loved books and Poe. I see pictures of myself from that year, long bangs and dark hair, deep, serious eyes. I look like Poe's younger sister. Or child love.

I went to school, excelled in Judaic studies and English and dutifully took piano lessons from an old lady who smelled like erasers and had a love of the metronome. Outside of Shabbat, when I was shaken by my rabbi-father's sermons during the Saturday morning synagogue service, I despaired of the rational world and the mandate of preserving the status quo: safety and predictability.

What was life about if not pushing beyond the boundaries of the expected? What was life without adventure and danger?

Poe's chaos was feverish freedom. It was alluring and transgressive, like dancing naked at night.

For the outsider child that I was -- introspective, sensual, sensitive, adopted -- Poe was mother and father, the rebellious older brother I always dreamed of.

Thus it must be for all who love Poe; that sense of an intimate encounter, the flattering feeling of being friended by one who is defiant, fearless, brilliant and crazy, chosen to be part of an inner circle of hyper-vigilant consciousness.

In the middle of a harsh 21st Century New York winter, an adult is recalled to her childhood, to the moment of grand discovery of a transcendent reality, to beauty -- tragic and true -- to the kingdom she shared with a tormented, long dead writer by the shores of the deepest, darkest sea.

___________________________________________________________________________

* Fear of Missing Out
** Husband of Bungalow Babe

Ripped from Television...Life Imitating Art Imitating Life

"Is the murder of Menachem Stark a tragedy?" HOBB* inquired of me earlier this morning.

My husband's query was not a trick question but his way of testing my compassion and sanity, I suppose.

You see, ever since the body of Menachem Stark was discovered, charred, in a Great Neck gas station dumpster, I have been consumed with the story for it strikes me as an example of a single, dramatic and yes, tragic event that also functions as a portal into another entire world, hidden from view, characterized by murky goings-on.

If ever there was a recent, local true-life crime that resembled an episode of "Law & Order" it is the kidnapping and murder of Menachem Stark.

As on "Law & Order," details about the victim emerged during the very first phase of the murder investigation that appear to indicate that the deceased was less-than-unanimously beloved.

The most recent revelation, courtesy of The NY Daily News is that Stark's business partner, Israel Perlmutter, might be a suspect in the murder. Had this been an episode of the crime series you can bet that  Perlmutter would have been introduced to viewers within the first few minutes after Stark's body was retrieved from the dumpster, grieving vocally, the last person one would suspect of committing such a heinous act.

Please understand, I am not making light of this case.

This is real life, a horrible and yes, tragic crime, that imitates art imitating life.

Over the past 48 hours, the blogosphere has exploded with musings, commentary and opinions on the murder of Menachem Stark, providing a beautiful case study for students of journalism, New York City and the Jewish community. The NY Post headline I wrote about yesterday has largely been criticized as insensitive and possibly anti-Semitic, sparking (in addition to other responses) a rally at Borough Hall yesterday.

Family and friends of Menachem Stark have rushed to his defense in print, claiming that he was a good and charitable man. They have vehemently countered claims that he was -- as portrayed elsewhere -- a slumlord and dishonest businessman with a paper trail of lawsuits behind him. They have, in fact, denied that he was anything less than the pillar of the community, a charitable, generous man.

Other writers, notably Jay Michaelson in the Forward and Shmarya Rosenberg in Failed Messiah, have countered that portrayal, noting the moral blindness of the Satmar community, outing the numerous allegations of Stark's unethical business practices, expressing bitter disappointment that there has been no acknowledgement that this murdered man might have been involved in activities that likely led to his death.

There have been allegations that this point of view is tantamount to a justification of Stark's murder.

There has been a call for respect for a man who cannot defend himself.

There has been outrage and disgust at the invocation of the Shoah and the suggestion that the crime was anti-Semitic in nature.

There have been impassioned conversations on Facebook and in the tangible, three-dimensional world about the meta-story... through a Jewish lens.

"A tragedy?" I repeated, incredulous that my husband even needed to ask. "Yes. A huge, gigantic, horrifying tragedy. A father is gone. A husband is gone. A brother and son and friend is gone. There is enough tragedy to go around for miles."

HOBB and I had an intense staring contest for about a minute. He, too, is consumed with the story, writing about it through a different lens. His reportage has been different from my own. And perhaps his point of entry is different as well.

As for me, I believe that compassion can coexist with the quest for justice.

Menachem Stark's murderers need to be found and brought to justice.

He did not deserve to be killed, burned and left in a dumpster. His family did not deserve this pain.

An investigation is underway. Yes, the NY Post headline was in extreme poor taste...but I am betting that there is more than a grain of truth to allegations that Menachem Stark had a long list of people with ample motive to want him dead.

This is real life, not a television show.

And though the Satmar community is far removed from my own, I still feel a collective, Klal Yisrael fellowship, a deep connection to this unfolding drama. It may appear that I stand on the sidelines but as a Jew -- even a liberal Upper West Side Jew -- I am at the epicenter of the story, as we all are.

And that is why the stakes are so high.

The first order of business is to find Menachem Stark's killers and the motive for this crime. And if this investigation also reveals a complex web of corruption or criminality within the Satmar community, let us hope that there is the tikkun of truth-telling and teshuva.

______________________________________________________________________________
*Husband of Bungalow Babe

Murder of a Member of the Tribe

Since I learned of the lurid murder of Menachem (Max) Stark, a 39-year-old Satmar real estate developer (or slumlord and loan-shark, according to the tabloids and blogs) and father of eight, I have been keenly uncomfortable.

Infamously pictured on the cover of the NY Post in a shtreimel to the accompaniment of the words "Who didn't want him dead?" Stark's journey from kidnapping victim in Brooklyn to partially-burned dead guy in a dumpster in Great Neck, NY is the exact type of crime story people expect from New York City.

I'm certain that brand new NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio had a moment of "why me???!" when briefed on the discovery of Stark's body and his business bio. This incident managed to overshadow the airplane-safely-landing-on-the-Major Deegan story, becoming the most shocking feature of the new year and the new administration.

As the revelations came out about Stark's allegedly long list of enemies, his rotten business deals, foreclosures, lawsuits, reports of large sums of money swindled, roster of furious tenants and more  -- amid outpouring of grief in the Satmar community -- I felt more and more sad, sick, angry, dismayed, embarrassed and just plain disgusted.

A murder was committed in my city over the past few days. The victim was not just Jewish but visibly, extremely, photogenically Jewish.

Yes, he was married and a father and the member of a community but this Jewish victim's victimhood was suddenly highly ambiguous.

A man's half-burned body is found in a gas station in Great Neck. It is human nature to crave the catharsis of compassion for this terrible fate, but complicating the horror of Menachem Stark's death is the fact that he seems to have been a terrible, unethical person.

This fact does not justify his murder but it does negate his local, self-serving do-gooderism. It changes the narrative. It provides, as any cop show can teach you, a motive for the murder.

If the reports emerging are true, Menachem Stark swindled, cheated and took advantage of many, many people. And that reality demands to be acknowledged. Media accounts of the Satmar community mourning Stark as if he were a saint -- or opining that the "hit" was an act of anti-Semitism -- are mind-blowing.  Shmarya Rosenberg, the author of the muckracking blog Failed Messiah notes:

"…I’ve spent hours these past two days listening to Satmar hasidim complain about the Post, the Daily News, Pix 11, other media outlets and FailedMessiah.com. Not once have I heard a Satmar hasid say that what Stark allegedly did to tenants, contractors and lenders is wrong. Not once have I heard any introspection, any attempt to come to grips with the idea that it is wrong to steal, cheat and abuse.…"

As I write in the middle of the night, it occurs to me that I am viewing the collective denial of the Satmar community through the lens of a liberal, socially-integrated Jew whose reflexive mode is the complete opposite impulse -- to assume collective guilt. Where I come from, the most painful aspect of Bernie Madoff's criminality was his Jewishness. In my Jewish world, there is complete acknowledgement of his guilt and the suffering of his victims. There is no soft spot for what a great and charitable guy he was.

At the end of the day, the measure of Bernie Madoff's life is the harm he caused to others.

Two weeks ago, I received an unusual phone call.  A young man from a local ultra-Orthodox enclave wanted me to help him publicize criminal activity in his community.

"You don't understand what it's like," he told me. "People know what is going on. But the concept of truth means nothing to them. It's all about keeping the walls around our community high enough to keep out the outside world."

The NYPD and the local press are on the story of Menachem Stark's murder and it seems fairly certain that the truth will shortly emerge.

But it frightens me no end that the facts that link this man's life and violent death may be utterly dismissed or ignored by thousands of individuals who will see him only as a righteous victim of a hateful crime that festered in the dangerous, anti-Semitic outside world, thereby missing the chance to learn that sometimes, the real threat lies within.

A Tale of Two Cities. New Year's Day Edition

There is a special thrill that comes from having one's private take on reality validated by a famous person voicing a belief that one supposed was utterly unique to oneself.

I, for one, often find my opinions at odds with the prevailing wisdom or mainstream ideology. Since I was a child, I often disagreed with widely-held beliefs or found myself confused -- or disturbed -- by much that passed for accepted wisdom.

Though it cemented my sense of isolation (and enforced my understanding of myself as an outsider), I also prided myself on being a free-thinker and believer in social justice, egalitarianism and progressive values.

As I came of age as a kid in Queens, the isle of Manhattan beckoned beyond my bedroom window in Douglaston. From my weekend and holiday forays there as a grade school kid and then as a high school student on the Upper East Side, I knew that "the city" was the place for me -- buzzing not only with exciting things to do but with people who thought as I did or believed in challenging the status quo.

Manhattan became truly mine at the age of 15, in 1976 when I began commuting there during the school week. I would love walking for miles, taking in the street theatre, the costumes and postures, the streetscapes, the rich, meaty stew of languages and accents, many of them regional. I would love eavesdropping in diners and cafes, hearing opinions fly around me, often colliding in mid-air. I read New York magazine, The New Yorker and The Village Voice cover to cover, giving the ads as much weight as the articles.  I envied the denizens of Manhattan...so cool, so diverse, so socially-evolved, so free, so close to the essence of everything that was important. I rode the subway down to the Lower East Side which was still filled with Judaica shops and kosher restaurants and old socialist hangouts and the famous discount clothing stores to soak in the tangible culture of my people. I visited newly-happening SoHo and wandered through the art galleries. I especially loved the quirky theaters and music clubs, the thin, scruffy creative types lurking around, making marvelous music and art. I haunted bookstores and the New York Public Library, reading with my eyes, with my ears, with my pores, with my heart, soul and entire being, learning how to remake myself -- unmake myself! -- into the person I was really meant to be.

The Manhattan of my first love was Taxi Driver-Manhattan, dangerous and romantic, gritty, egalitarian, real. The Manhattan that seduced me was cynical about conspicuous consumerism; turned its collective nose up at possessions and privilege (except for intellectual privilege). That magical kingdom valued experience and access to interesting ideas and above all, creativity. Alas, the city that I loved had a shelf-life of about ten years...and then the disco-era values and the rising cost of real estate began changing the character of my Paradise Island, driving out artists and people with interesting but terrible-paying jobs or lifelong students or marginal characters who might also be great poets or novelists or musicians or anyone not rich or not on public assistance.

Though I secured a place for myself on this island, so many others like me were voted off.

They made way for the people we were suddenly supposed to admire and aspire to be -- the super-affluent. Nearly overnight, having an interesting but terrible-paying job seemed stupid, immature or pathetic. Losers had trouble paying their (rising) rent but the new Manhattanites -- Masters and Mistresses of the Universe -- seemingly had no trouble subsidizing their swell existence.

You see, no matter our defiant insistence on the rectitude of our values, we also feared that they were onto some essential truth that kept eluding the rest of us. Though we disdained their materialism and shallow aspirations, we secretly wondered if there was something wrong with us. After all, we could not afford a fraction of the things they could.

The flight of the artists and the middle class from Manhattan has been a developing story for the past thirty years. The absence of affordable housing has been such a striking fact of city life that mentioning it now seems beside the point...even if it is precisely the point.

This slo-mo transformation has unfolded in real-time with ample opportunity for corrective action.

Maybe my adolescent Manhattan was more schizophrenic than I knew. Maybe the inequality between rich and poor is a timeless reality. Still, until Mayor Bill de Blasio's "Tale of Two Cities" inaugural speech today, I had never heard anyone in an official capacity proclaim the reality of what has come to pass in such stark, dramatic -- and literary! -- terms.

A Tale of Two Cities.

There is no unsaying it and it has been happening for several decades now.

Maybe the seeds for this fissure were planted long ago; there has always been the East Side vs. the West Side rivalry. Uptown has always competed with Downtown.

And I know that the pundits are not giving BDB a whole lotta love for sharing his insights. The new mayor has caught a lot of heat for failing to praise Michael Bloomberg; he has been called arrogant and myopic and needlessly pessimistic about the rallying economy of New York City.

But I think otherwise and I wish to thank Mayor Bill de Blasio for nailing a core reality. New York City has lost its balance; spinning out of control it split into two.

So Mayor de Blasio called it. He co-opted the concept of the 1% vs the 99%, integrating the defiant hippie message of Occupy Wall Street within City Hall.

This pleases me no end for I celebrated the spirit of Occupy Wall Street. I think that naming the social inequity in our midst was bold...and long overdue.

And I think that the reason de Blasio is getting such blowback today is because with his Tale of Two Cities theme, he scared the dickens out of the privileged citizens of New York City.

Getting it On

It was my first drum lesson in over six months and I was frantically rushing through Times Square in an iridescent turquoise dress that looked like it was made from extra fabric from a child's mermaid costume, drum sticks poking out of my handbag.

As is my habit, I was late. "U No Me," I had texted Mike, my drum teacher, as I was running to the 2 train at W72nd Street. "B there in 10." By which I meant: 15 minutes.

I started the day by arriving late to my 8 a.m. JNF breakfast, which was a bit of a mystery since I was actually awake well before dawn, due to my jet lag.

Ten hours later, dressed in my mermaid dress, I careened past bodegas and the Garment Center Congregation (what?? a shul right next to my drum studio??), literally sprinting into the new location of Funkadelic Studios, which had been my musical home away from home last year.

Aside from my travel and work schedule, I think that part of what kept me away was the childish fear that I would hate the new setting of Funkadelic.

Shouting out quick hi's to the staff who yelled back, "Good to see you!" I found rehearsal room #7.  My teacher Mike Shapiro was waiting for me, playing drums.

Screeching my greeting and apologies and sheer joy at our reunion, I picked up my sticks and approached the drum kit.

Instantly, the half-year gulf closed.

Sitting on my throne, I reverted back into my drummer girl self, gazing with reverence at the instruments before me as if they were vats of glittering jewels.

"Show me what you got," requested Mike.

After a brief moment of terror that I had forgotten everything, I was back in business. Mike plugged in my iPod. I played Tom Petty. Mike plugged in his iPod. I played more Tom Petty.

Then Mike said, "let's get it on" and changed the music.

I sinceeeeerly tried...

My adolescence came flooding back to me.

Mike showed me how to adapt the beat I had just played previously, making it cool and super funky.

Mike played air guitar.

We sang along with Marvin Gaye.

Theeeere is nothing wrooong with me....

I kept the beat.

After it was over, he high-fived me.

"That was cool," he said. "Man, you were in the pocket."

And that, in the world of drummers, is as good as it gets.

Yeah. I got it on.

Seize the (Birth) Day!

In celebration of my 53rd Birthday, here is my bracha (blessing) for those of my vintage...or really any vintage. May you:

• Embrace the awesomeness of being your particular age, with everything that comes with it.
• Pause to acknowledge that you have been on this planet for a significant period of time, maybe not along the continuum of history but along the timeline of other people's lives
• Take chances.
• Allow yourself to feel truly wise every once in a while.
• Not be afraid of hard work. Nothing of value is achieved easily.
• Agitate for positive change.
• Live with your eyes, mind, arms and heart wide open.
• Believe in the power of fun.
• Opt for joy.
• Make peace when you can and with whom you can.
• Be smart enough to live according to solid values.
• Give up silly or shallow pursuits.
• Don't waste your energies on fruitless endeavors.
• Read all the books you wish you had read.
• See all the films you wish you had seen.
• Travel as you can afford to.
• Dance.
• Sing.
• Celebrate.
• Snuggle.
• Explore.
• Party on!

All About Me (An Expose, as Per Your Request)

I was raised on inherently Jewish ideals and values:

• Kol Yisrael areivim ze l'ze: all Jews are responsible one for another
• Clal Yisrael: all Jews are part of one fellowship
• Tzedek, tzedek tirdof: Justice shalt thou pursue
• Hochay'ach tochi'ach et ameetecha: Thou shalt rebuke thy fellow
• Lo alecha ha'melacha ligmor, v'lo ata ben choree l'hivatel mee'menu: It is not up to you to complete the task but neither are you exempt from taking part in it
• Im ayn ani li, mee li? Uk'she ani l'atzmee ma ani? If I am not for myself, who will be, but if I am only for myself, what am I?

Undergirding these and countless other ideologies was the central understanding that human beings were put on this planet l'takayn olam b'malchut sha-dai. To fix the world for the Kingdom of God.

I could go through my twelve years of Jewish Day School education and pull out the ideas and teaching of those who influenced me, including Martin Buber, Hillel, Rabbi Akiva, Reb Nachman of Bratslav, Moses Maimonides, Nechama Leibowitz, Yehuda Amichai, the poet Rachel, Chaim Potok, Milton Steinberg, Leonard Bernstein, Franz Kafka, Hannah Senesh, Kings David and Solomon, the writers of Pirkei Avot (the Ethics of the Fathers), Shlomo Carlebach, Woody Allen, Philip Roth, Erica Jong, Judy Blume, Nora Ephron, the liturgists and composers of our prayers and hymns.

I could attempt to compile a list of all that I've read and studied, the 40-plus times I've been to Israel, my summers spent at Jewish summer camps (Massad, Ramah, Moshava, Cejwin...and others), and my A-list Jewish credentials: I am the daughter, granddaughter and niece of prominent rabbis. I know how to read Torah, in fact, I do read Torah periodically at synagogue.

But for those angry folks who have recently called for an "expose" of me based on my activistic work on a recent case involving the effort to help an Orthodox victim publicize her plight, I offer this pithy Q and A with myself in order to help you in your investigations.

As my personal work ethic is complete transparency, I present this interview, which is intended to reveal all the juicy revelations you are surely hoping to uncover. I believe that coupled with Googling me in order to read my press releases and published writings online, you will be able to answer the question posed by one of those who wrote -- most elegantly -- in a recent comment thread of a blog notable for its hysteria and vitriol: "Who is this Dicker?"

Q: Who is this Dicker?
A: Ah, I'm so glad that you asked! I am an almost 53 year old woman who lives in NYC and works as a writer and communications consultant.

Q: Is this Dicker a frum Jew?
A: By your definitions, probably not. By my definitions, hell yes!!! I keep Shabbat and kashrut and holidays. My life is Gd-centered. I am a passionate Zionist. My life's work is motivated by mitzvot (good deeds) and the task of tikkun olam (repairing the world).

Q: But we heard this Dicker is a Conservative Jew! We published the finding that her father is a Conservative rabbi!
A: Yes! You did a good job investigating me! My dad was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary and served as a respected pulpit rabbi for 21 years. He then became a clinical psychologist. But once a rabbi, always a rabbi. And once the daughter of a Conservative rabbi, always the daughter of a Conservative rabbi.

Q: We heard this Dicker eats treyf!!!! An article about her in the Forward states that she once bought Irish Cheddar cheese at Zabar's for her oldest son who lives in Berlin. What kind of Jew eats such chazarei (literally pig-food)?
A: Hmmm. You are probably unaware that the recent requirements for kosher cheese are a bit more than a century old. Once upon a time, all Jews ate all cheese unless it was laced with chunks of ham. Let's be real: cheddar cheese is hardly a cheeseburger. But since you asked -- and to lay matters on the table -- I'm quite sure that my concept of kashrut differs from yours. And I'm sure that yours differs from other Jews. But no. I do not eat anything from a pig.

Q: We heard this Dicker hates Orthodox Jews! Why would she engage in a campaign of such lashon hara (evil words, aka gossip) against Orthodox Jews????
A: As I'm married to an Orthodox Jew, it would be hard for me to hate Orthodox Jews. My kids probably affiliate as Modern Orthodox and I love them. I do not hate my husband. I love my husband, though I'm pretty sure you would consider him as treyf (unkosher) as you seem to consider me. He wrote a book a couple of decades ago where he candidly articulated his struggles to live a religious life and be a journalist. It was a bestseller.

I have friends in various Chabad communities and, believe it or not, in Kiryas Joel. I have friends who live in contested territories in Israel. I have female friends who cover their hair. I have male friends whose tzitzit dangle from their shirts. I have neo-haredi relatives.

But let's discuss those charges of lashon hara. Since when is working to reverse injustice considered lashon hara? I believe that the term lashon hara is misappropriated by those that do not want their own evil deeds revealed...or the evil deeds of those near and dear to them. This is a very subjective term.

And incidentally, the work I do is not against anybody. It is for the purpose of repairing the world. In other words, I believe in humankind partnering with Hashem to fix that which is broken in the world.

Q:What other terrible projects is this Dicker behind? What other damage has she done to the Jewish People?
A: I am a writer who has worked professionally as a publicist for over 20 years. Google will be very instructive in revealing my work to you. I have been writing personal essays and feature articles for the better part of 35 years. I operate in full transparency; indeed, I am proud of my work and whom I have promoted. Among my past and present clients:

• The Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis
• The Yeshiva University Museum
• Neshama Carlebach
• Yossi Klein Halevi
• Justice for Jews from Arab Countries
• The Central Conference of American Rabbis
• Yeshivat Chovevei Torah
• The Rabbinical Assembly
• The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
• American Hebrew Academy
• Magen Tzedek

While this list is a fraction of what I have done, I include these to give you an idea of the scope of my projects across the denominational divide, though I've consulted on literally dozens of projects, some in the realm of political life.

I have also done pro bono projects on behalf of worthy causes.

I've worked with artists, writers, filmmakers, schools, cultural initiatives and social activism.

I do not discriminate by denomination. I will work with Jews of all affiliations.

The only people I do not work with are haters, liars, thieves and lunatics.

Q: We've seen pictures of this Dicker online. She is not dressed modestly! She does not cover her head!  She wears sleeveless dresses and Doc Marten hiking boots. Who is she to work with frum Jews?
A: It is true that I dress differently from ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Q: What else is this Dicker up to?
A: Glad you asked! I like to swing dance, which I sure is considered treyf by you, but that's fine. I have plenty of partners. I even wrote an article for the NYTimes about swing dance in NYC. I like to travel and do so often for my work. I am a champion Scrabble player and am currently writing a book on the utility of Scrabble in marriage with my husband. I have two adorable dogs. I am blessed with wonderful friends and family. My Facebook page is public so you can cyber-stalk me if you wish. I have a new cool business called The Wedding Kvetchers. I hope you will Like it on Facebook. I am the architect of Flashmobs. I am a performer. I play the drums. Oh, and I like to sing in karaoke bars with friends, though I KNOW you are against that because you believe that a woman's voice cannot be heard in public.

So maybe that's what your suspicion of me is all about.

I am a woman who has raised her voice in public to address social injustice perpetrated in the name of Judaism. I believe that Judaism is the most brilliant, compassionate and humanistic religion on the planet. I am offended by acts of injustice in the name of the Torah. My belief of Gd is that of a personal, caring Master of the Universe.

Yes, I have spoken out. Not for the cause of lashon hara but for tzedek, perhaps even tikkun olam.

So, I hope you have a better idea of who I am. I could write so much more -- indeed, what a rare an indulgent pleasure to write about myself!! -- but I'm on my way to the gym, another thing I really like to do. I hope you do, too! I think that spending an hour or so on the treadmill or elliptical trainer might help you think about such values as Clal Yisrael and tikkun olam.
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PS: I took this selfie aboard the Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul two weeks ago. I thought that a personally-penned expose of myself should include a self-taken photograph.

Integrity

When I made the decision, nearly 20 years ago, to veer from my childhood ambition of being a full-time writer in order to toil in the groves of public relations, my action was informed by the most practical of considerations:

As the mother of children I wished to raise and educate Jewishly, I needed to have a steady income.

As a freelance writer raising small kids, I had an integrated and organic -- if hectic -- lifestyle, chasing down feature stories that compelled me by day, being with my children on weekends and after school, writing late into the night.

For the New York Times's Westchester Weekly section, I wrote feature articles about the first female rabbi in the county; the battle of anti-floridationists; the struggle of midwives to gain delivery privileges in area hospitals; the muralist Alton Tobey; the comedian Marc Weiner; the herbalist Andrea Candee; a campaign to stop smoking in county high schools; the effect of homelessness on children.

For Jewish newspapers, I penned first-person columns about my family life and profiled famous people, such as Abba Eban, for Jewish magazines.

And I wrote a novel, never published in its entirely (though a chapter was published as a short story): Revelations of a Rabbi's Daughter.

My decision to halt personal publication was made in the middle of the Westchester night, sitting on the counter of our beloved Tudor home in New Rochelle, which we had just decided to sell.

It was done with stoic certainty but it was hardly easy.

The sad reality was that two writers with kids in Jewish Day School could not afford the mortgage of a home we had bought right before the real estate market crash of 1987.

We were house poor, but we were also poor poor, owing to my freelance income. Those Times articles, no matter how compelling, paid bubkes, and the Jewish publications paid even worse.

A family in the Greater New York area who aspired to a Jewishly robust life needed to earn more money than we were making.

So I hopped over the invisible yet tangible fence separating journalism and public relations, never abandoning my writing self or sensibility, never forsaking my dreams, committed to working only on projects that compelled me.

For twenty years, I have done exactly that.

Yes, there have been moments of sadness that I have not given myself the time to write a second novel (though I have written numerous novellas and short stories) and I have railed against the high cost of Jewish education that forced me to leave my truest calling behind...or at least back burner it for two decades.

However, an awareness has been growing in me over the past year that perhaps the sacrifice I made was not completely sacrificial.

Perhaps my work in public relations -- first as an employee of non-profit institutions I revere and since 2002, as a consultant to countless causes, individuals and organizations I admire -- is also a calling of sorts.

Looking back at the successful promotion of people, places and things that are near and dear to me, my decision is looking less and less like a concession or compromise or pragmatic solution to being broke.

I have worked on important books and with important thinkers.

I have drawn audiences to important films and art exhibitions.

Devoted to the vision of Conservative Judaism, I have helped to reverse the narrative of decline surrounding this centrist approach to Jewish life.

In particular, involved as I am now with a high profile case involving the injustice of Agunah -- the chained woman whose ex-husband refuses to grant her a Get, Jewish writ of divorce -- I feel a sense of serenity and even good fortune.

It is becoming clear to me that the work I have done is not just about getting my clients' name into the paper but about changing things: people's minds; injustice; the social landscape.

Life unfolds in mysterious ways and the entire canvas is often hidden from view. I've been guilty of gazing only at fragments and corners, feeling restless and sad. I have regarded that which has preoccupied me chiefly as my failure to fulfill my truest calling.

But on this erev Shabbat, as I get a jump on a day that ends at 4:19 p.m. I have a rare feeling of peace about the non-journalistic work I have done. The wide canvas is revealed to me, perhaps only momentarily, and I see a marvelous mosaic, a body of work, something rich and meaningful.

And that feeling of completion acts as a comforting muse, inspiring the books and stories and articles that have waited patiently in the wings of my soul, waiting to be written.

Terrorized by Twitter: A True Story

Someone I know, let's call him Al, is not a comfortable consumer of social media. Al is on record as disliking social media so much that he once used a naughty verb in an Ivy League graduate school classroom to suggest what his students should do to social media. 

Heck, in many ways, Al is not really an entirely comfortable citizen of the 21st Century.

Though Al is a prominent individual, communicates via email, owns an iPhone and surfs the Web with the rest of 'em, Facebook makes him frantic, Twitter terrifies him and don't even mention any of the other, newfangled products of our cyber age.

The other day, Al was fiddling with his iPhone whilst bored and accidentally sent out an invitation to his entire contact list (hundreds, maybe thousands...all over the world, including other very prominent individuals) to follow him on Twitter.

The problem was: though he had a Twitter account, he had never sent a tweet in his life. An intern once set it up for him so he could follow other people's postings. Which he did about once every four and a half months.

Further, the problem was: Al was now suddenly flooded by responses from the hundreds if not thousands of those he had invited to follow him in Twitter. Some were delighted to find him Tweeting. Others demurred, sending a polite negatory RSVP. Still others used this occasion to catch up with him.

The even further problem was: Al had no idea how to stem the tide of well-wishers, enthusiasts, regretfuls and others who were suddenly expecting him to expound in 140 characters or less about current events, promote himself, post photos of his Pomeranians, twerk or otherwise.

And the even, even further problem was that Al soon learned that those he invited were being pecked to death by the Twitter bird who would evidently not rest until they either accepted or denied his request to have them follow him.

Al was haunted, hunted and helpless to stop the madness. The emails kept pouring in. Al answered those he could. This Twitter nightmare afflicted Al for two weeks at which point he turned to a social media savvy gal for help.

Five minutes later, his account was deactivated.

First, he had to jump through about 4 million hoops to assure the cybergods that he really, truly, honestly did wish to depart the Twittersphere.

Al really, truly, honestly did. He pressed the really, truly, honestly final deactivation key.

And now, Al is once again a free bird.