Shvayg Shosh

He is tall and slender with a crooked nose, big eyes, full lips, a steady professional job, and a neatly button-down shirt. His ordinariness is so extradinary it makes my heart ache. He belly laughs at my goofy, well-timed joke. His wedding ring laughs at me when it bumps against the table. I am unsure what hurts more: the baby at the next table or him. Both of them hold someone else's joy and on another day, in another week, in another year, neither would grab my attention with such strangling unyielding force. And oddly, it's his force that pulls me more than the baby. Because, well, through all of this, my lack of a partner has left me emptier than I've ever known I could be. Even while pregnant, the loneliness grabbed me and pulled me down forcing the howl out of my throat. And don't tell me about the kind of loneliness you feel when your partner isn't really your partner. I know every nook and cranny. I know every sharp edge. But I can gather as many f

A few months ago, my friend Jasmine posed on a question on her Facebook wall:  What makes you Howl?  Right now, the last thing I want to do is howl. Right now, all I want to numbness. Numbness and an empty head.  This, of course, is asking a lot from me... At the end of a long summer of unemployment and dating, I found myself still single, still unemployed, and newly pregnant.  After a moment of hesitation, a scan on one internet site on the abortion pill that after ten seconds left me in tears, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was having baby number three.  Unlike my other two children, this child would be mine and mine alone.  While the complications of my current life would make this a challenge, my parents, sister, and close group of supportive female friends allowed me to see that this task would not be impossible.  Secretly,I was delighted.  Secretly, because for the first time in my life, I was completely taken over by an unfamiliar emotion: fear of what other

Last January, my friend Galit Breen published an article on Jews and Tattoos . I was lucky enough to be a part of it. Today, I've added more ink to my body. Like everything I do, my ink has everything to do with my Jewishness... I am a tattooed Jew. Most of my  tattoos define my Judaism.  I reject the prohibition against tattoos. I am not committing idolatry nor am I debasing my body by making it more beautiful. I am a Reform Jew. I am the mother of two children whose father is not a Jew. I am a Queer Jew. I am a Jew who loves, honors, respects, intellectualizes and questions my people and my religion every second of every day. My Jewishness is at the core of my very being, and my tattoos reflect my identity.  The tattoo on my leg is Eve, naked in front of a tree, holding an apple with a Torah scroll wrapped around her body. The words-  Etz Chaim - tree of life are above her head. Frankly, it’s a lot of information to unpack.  For me, Eve is the most important character in th