Peggy Walt, at The Blogs

Jan 20, 2024, 10:16 AM

“Olam hafuch, the world is upside down,” our rabbi said, referencing a recent speech by Netanyahu, who he doesn’t usually agree with. But at this moment, with (ex-Apartheid) South Africa calling genocide on Israel, itself the victim of genocidal...

May 24, 2023, 7:33 AM

Once more, with feeling

It’s the Tuesday before our Monday departure on the “trip of a lifetime.” I am madly juggling work, pre-packing, cleaning and five thousand last minute things, waking each morning after exactly 5.2 hours of sleep, according to my CPAP...

Mar 20, 2022, 7:20 AM

What’s in a name? The R(t) word

Earlier this week I received a notice from a colleague about the name change of a ballet organization; it will no longer be called the Society of Russian Ballet, “in light of current events deeply affecting the world.” Going...

Sep 5, 2021, 11:51 PM

Head of the Year

Head of the Year Every year, I tell myself it’ll be different. The house will sparkle. The books will be housed. Broken things repaired, broken relationships mended. The trunk of my car tidied, all I didn’t need, given. The soup simmering, hot and delicious, the...

Jun 13, 2021, 10:11 AM

Standing on the Shore

We didn’t know much about Shimon’s family when I started digging around the Internet. Bela said her Aunt Nechama made dress forms in a big company, and that she’d bugged her mother, Ida, to help her find a boyfriend;...

Mar 3, 2021, 7:38 PM

Pesach, 2021: When it’s over, will you remember?

The Plague of Alone: (Because 17 months of not hugging your grandchild, because you talk to yourself too much, because why wear the good jewellery?).The Plague of No Money: (Because will your job last, because will you get a...

Aug 22, 2020, 1:15 AM

Photos from the Old and New Worlds

For most of his life my husband could count his small post-Holocaust family on the fingers of one hand: “We were five. My brother and me, my parents and my grandmother.” That’s all he knew. Everyone else was dead,...

Aug 1, 2020, 1:45 AM

Letters Home

Not too many letters home this year, what with everything from Jewish camps to soccer drills cancelled or having moved online into the virtual world, another victim of the pandemic. It’s too bad, because summer letters are some of...

Jul 20, 2020, 11:17 PM

A Covenant of Salt

It’s raining outside our cottage; the day is grey and quiet. It’s high tide. Small whitecaps smack the rocks buttressing the cliff-edge. It’s a gentle smack, though, not the dramatic wave crashing action of the Eastern Shore of Nova...

May 26, 2020, 11:47 AM

Safe Home

Portapique, Nova Scotia. April 18-19, 2020. We won’t forget the place or the date, where the worst mass murder in Canada’s history took place during an already anxiety-ridden pandemic. Portapique, where there is also great natural beauty, and cottagers, those...

About Me

Peggy Walt has worked for 40 years in the arts and culture sector in Nova Scotia, Canada. She's writing a book on the search for what happened to her husband's family during the Holocaust and her conversion to Judaism in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Nonfiction at King's University in Halifax.

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