Stories I Tell Myself

Linda Brody Bakst on Brooklyn, growing up, identity and more

Month: January 2023

  • I have read quite a bit about the Holocaust. Recently I read Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt, which reported on the trial in Israel of the Nazi who was responsible for the transport of Jews to concentration camps. I also read Fugitives of the Forest by Allan Levine which profiled Jewish Partisans who fought…

  • I’m not sure what happened exactly, but something has crystalized for me. I have been writing this blog, participating in writing groups, taking classes online and in person and spending countless hours thinking over the past 7 ½ years, but it is only in the last month that it has become clear to me that…

  • It was a painful week. We made the agonizing, distressing, heartbreaking decision to euthanize Raffa, our cat. It was the right decision; she was suffering, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t question whether it was the right thing to do, whether it was time to do it, whether there was any hope she could recover.…

  • As is often the case for me, I was sorting through papers (oh, the endless supply of paper!) and found something I wrote early in 1994.  To give some context, Leah was in first grade, Dan was in pre-k (daycare at the Albany Jewish Community Center) and I was working full-time for the state Department…