The school had built up excitement [read: parent pressure] among the students, and Hodaya’s heart was set: She wanted to be Principal for the Day

We see men running, talleisim flapping after them in the wind. We run after them, to the makeshift bomb shelters set up behind the shul

Each week, there’s a new mix of guests at the table. People her neighbor finds in shul, people who have nowhere else to go

Off to the shoe store goes every mother whose husband has bein hazmanim. She takes along every one of her children who has two feet, including the baby who is bound to start walking within a year, because, hello, 40 percent

Self-pity sweeps in like a welcome friend. Will I ever really be understood? Why can’t Aryeh have a turn looking after these little troublemakers?

“If I have a chandelier in my bathroom,” Ma reasoned, “why should it bother anyone? It’s my bathroom, after all”