by Nessa Rapoport

House on the River: A Summer Journey

To be grown up implies a state of arrival, but i am a work in progress, humbled daily by what i cannot accept, or even grasp. Here, my children have been my teachers. They frequently hear the words “I don’t know” and, alas, “I’m sorry.” And they understand—I hope—that although I have many unwavering principles, the interpretation of those principles may be surprisingly porous: In the house of Israel that my husband and I invent daily, a teenager’s sound argument can undo the fiat. Rather easily!

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How Do We Become Grown-Up Jewish Women?

The articles in this special section:

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah*

by Fiona Rosenbloom

Yentl’s Revenge

by Danya Ruttenberg

The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt

by Ruth Andrew Ellenson

Room in the Heart

by Sonia Levitin

The JGirl’s Guide

by Shulamit Reinharz

My Sister’s Wedding

by Hannah R. Goodman

Lost in America

by Marilyn Sachs

The Last Days of Dogtown

by Anita Diamant

The J.A.P. Chronicles

by Isabel Rose

Confessions of a Closet Catholic

by Sarah Darer Littman

House on the River: A Summer Journey

by Nessa Rapoport

Closing the Sea

by Judith Katzir

When I Was a Soldier

by Valerie Zenatt