Trader Joe’s was crazy crowded on an April Saturday morning when I went to stock up on groceries. Flowers nearly flew into grocery carts with shoppers dashing to grab the popular camellia plants, redolent with tropical perfume. It was the eve of Easter, the end of Passover — time for final Seders — ...

A collaboration with the Westfield High School Journalism Program

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Did your parents say this? In any case, they probably taught you to look both ways before crossing a road, and uncountable other habits that prevent harm before real damage is done. As adults, we know accidents happen, and we safeguard children by t...

Students, beware! A move is afoot in Trenton to resurrect a practice that folks of a certain age remember all too well: cursive writing.Generation Xers and Baby Boomers, especially, likely remember learning cursive in school on paper specially printed with two parallel horizontal lines, with a dotte...

A collaboration with the Westfield High School Journalism Program

This series of gratitude columns features stories of unexpected friendships and how illuminating and elevating these connections can be. I wish to honor the humanity in every one of us, regardless of differences in class, race, gender, or politics.This week’s dramatic tale was contributed by Ann G, ...

In November of 1938 Germany, Kristallnacht which is considered the start of the Holocaust, while abrupt, was the result of years of escalating ‘resistance’ to Jews: street violence, vandalization of Jewish businesses, ostracizing the Jewish people from public spaces and stripping them of their right...

A Modest Proposal For Addressing the Problem of Racist and Antisemitic Graffiti at our Public Schools The emails always begin the same way. 'Regretfully, we are writing to inform you...' about the latest discovery of a racial epithet or a swastika scrawled across a desk, chair or bathroom stall. Eac...

We have jumped the hurdle of getting girls involved in sports, but this is a marathon, not a sprint — we still have a long way to go. While women’s participation in sports may be normalized, in comparison to their male counterparts, it is far from being celebrated.Starting in 1972, Title IX required...

In the last column, you met Karl, the D.C. firefighter, and Emma, the organic farmer. Karl grew up with conservative, evangelical parents. Emma was raised in a liberal family and is devoted to climate sustainability and locally sourced produce. It was unlikely Emma and Karl would ever meet, given th...