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THIS WEEK'S EDITION: On mothers, camp, shul, loss and lox

I am not a big fan of Mother's Day. Besides my general disdain for Hallmark holidays, the second-Sunday-in-May has in recent years mainly just provoked in me pangs of guilt. The endless guilt that careerist moms of my generation -- perhaps especially we Jewish ones -- feel about always falling short either at home or at work. Plus the guilt of not devoting enough to my relationship with my own mom! I do love brunch, but otherwise -- oy, I just wanted to ignore it.

Not this year. I've never spent so much quality time with my now-12-year-old twins. Most days, we sit together for three meals. I'm doing jigsaws, bike rides and ping-pong with my son (I've pulled ahead). My daughter and I walk to pick up lunch at local restaurants, and do a "Chopped" style cooking competition once a week. We're having deep, meaningful conversations -- today, about politicians' manipulation of data -- and silly, meaningless ones. We're frosting all manner of baked goods. It's hardly perfect, but I actually feel like I'm doing the best I can do.

I'm definitely not doing enough for my own mom, so indulge me for a moment as I honor her here. She is 80, healthy and handling this pandemic with quiet resilience. My daughter and I were both inspired by separate conversations we had with her a few weeks ago about her quarantine routine. Yes, there's Candy Crush and keeping up with her TV shows, reading and working on needlepoint talit bags for their November bnei mitzvah. And: every day, she calls two close female friends who are living alone. Every. Day.

My mother is not a longtime Forward reader, but many of yours were: some 165 stories poured forth when we recently asked readers to share memories of their parents and our paper. Chana Pollack, our amazing archivist, put together this roundup, which you can also find in this PDF, which you can download and print via the blue button at the bottom of this email.

You'll also find there Ari Feldman's heart-wrenching article about mothers (and fathers) of special-needs children contemplating a summer without camp; two very different takes on love in the time of coronavirus -- through the lens of a Los Angeles wedding and online dating; a broad look at how synagogues are adapting; a beautiful essay by Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove; an analysis of anti-Semitism during pandemics throughout history; and the latest in our series of tales from the Zabar's lox counter, this one about a very famous violinist.

And there's my latest column, a eulogy for a man who embodied "hineni" like no other.

So, Happy Mother's Day to all, and Shabbat Shalom.
Jodi

Jodi Rudoren
Editor-in-Chief

P.S.
Tune in today at 3 p.m. EDT to watch our national editor, Rob Eshman, cook #quarantineshabbat dinner featuring Joan Nathan's chocolate olive-oil mousse, and sign up here to join a Zoom conversation/concert next Thursday with David Broza. If you missed this week's live events, you can watch the one on dating and relationships here and catch the one about camp cancellations here.

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