Florence Berkowitz-Siegelberg, at The Blogs

Florence Berkowitz-Siegelberg

Nov 5, 2024, 10:13 PM

Mrs. Wurtzel was the first old lady I ever knew. I thought of her as I realized that I was now one, as well, and probably older than when we met over seventy years ago. Unlike becoming eligible for Medicare...

Nov 15, 2022, 3:29 AM

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Shpilkes at shul: A confession

I'd like to rein in my wandering thoughts and gain proficiency in the prayers that have inspired Jewish people for centuries, but I just don't love the synagogue

Mar 22, 2022, 6:36 PM

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Ukraine revisited

Jews are marched through the streets of Kamenets-Podolsk (Ukraine/USSR) to an execution site outside of the city, on August 27, 1941. (Gyula Spitz, Wikipedia)

Under the weight of my family's suffering in in the '40s, I'd forgotten the Ukrainians' many kindnesses, but I remember them now, as I pray for their victory

Nov 8, 2021, 9:55 AM

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Holocaust fatigue? Get over it. The Shoah must go on.

Hearkening back to when there was an unspoken agreement to speak and hear no evil. (Illustrative still from 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' Catskills episode.)

Perhaps there was too much focus on the horrors and we need to pull back from painful excess, but forgetting is a desecration of those who perished

Mar 16, 2021, 7:43 AM

Zooming home to Yiddish

Courtesy of the artist, Silvia Wagensberg.(www.silviawagensberg.com), a fellow student in an online Yiddish class (Worker's CIrcle, Fall 2020)

Searching for a silver lining in the pandemic, evokes the dark humor of the inquiry, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” An oft-cited principle of Judaism, that God creates a remedy prior to the onset of a...

Jan 26, 2021, 12:55 AM

International Holocaust Remembrance Day: A short recollection

Until that day in 1965, I had never thought of my mother and father as different. Like most of my friends’ parents, mine had accents and secrets, and casually juxtaposed references to “the camps” with requests to pass the...

Dec 16, 2020, 4:34 PM

A Chanukah Tail

A cat would be the perfect gift for my 95-year-old bed-bound father! Even though he had seemed as resolute as my mother to have a pet-free home when I was growing up, his off-guard look of contentment when alone...

Apr 20, 2020, 8:04 PM

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Germany’s remorse

Morris and Sara in the 1950s in Brooklyn, NY (courtesy)

I believe the reparation payments to Holocaust survivors like my parents helped us take a step on the long path to healing

About Me

Florence Berkowitz-Siegelberg grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and she and her husband raised three daughters on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She has published several freelance articles and produced a documentary, "The Road From Destruction", based on interviews with survivors. She recently retired from Kingsborough Community College where she taught writing.