Showing results by narrator "Joshua Stein" in All Categories

In a classroom of sandwiches, four students stand out with their homemade, culturally specific lunches. But before they can dig in and enjoy their favorite foods, their lunches are spoiled by scrunched noses and disgusted reactions from their sandwich-eating classmates.

Chuck Radke was raised in Fresno, California, in a neighborhood situated within a vast fig orchard and bordered by the Santa Fe Railroad. His father called the area Stuccoville. Just a month before Chuck turns eight, his father drives off in their Buick Skyhawk to start a new life with a thinner, prettier woman. The young boy and his chronically ill mother, whose body is ravaged by lupus, are left to redefine their family as they face the world together.

In 2006, I was attending several week-long classes at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago. One of the classes was titled “Who is a Jew?” and was taught by my doctoral advisor, Rabbi Dr. Byron Sherwin, of blessed memory. The course discussed biblical, rabbinic, medieval, and modern perspectives on the question. As Rabbi Sherwin was accustomed to doing, he typically included unusual cases for us to consider. Decades before, a student at the Spertus Institute had stirred some controversy.

Celebrate the beauty and strength of solitude with this poetic observation of the animal kingdom and those who move through it on their very own.