Last year I was here in New York and Renee and I went on a "noshing" tour. We ate our way through three synagogues and a performance space. This year, with both of us trying not to eat so much junk food, we opted for theater. First we went to a kosher gospel concert by Joshua Nelson at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a blend of Hebrew words, prayers and psalms with gospel and roots music. It was a rousing hour and a half.

From there we taxied to Chinatown and looked for a place to eat, along with many other Jews and Chinese. We finally found a place that didn’t have a line going out the door. Not a great lunch, but OK.

We walked around Chinatown killing time. Our next event was not until 6:30. It was a beautiful day, sunny and not too cold. Nice walking weather. Finally took the subway uptown. With more time to kill we had coffee in a Subway (sandwich shop) and people watched for half an hour–always good in New York.

The play we went to–another Jewish theme–was called Dai, Hebrew for enough. It was a one-woman show by Iris Bahr who portrayed a number of Israeli and Arab characters and their reactions to the current political situation in the middle east. She changed her persona as easily as changing her shirt. Some of it was funny, all of it tragic. Each skit was punctuated by a bomb blast and realistic sounds from after such an attack, giving the audience (me) a taste of what it must be like to live in Israel, never knowing when the next bomb was coming. It gave me a lot to think about–I’m still feeling a little shattered.