Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by C. Saphir
Laughter - Mishpacha
Would you ever have guessed that laughing is good for you? Are there serious benefits to cracking up? Yup, it’s true; there are health benefits to laughing, and they’re nothing to laugh at. Laughter can enhance your physical, emotional, and mental health. Laugh away! 8 Ways Laughing Can Make You Healthier Laughter can improve your immune system, making it easier to fight off viruses and other bugs. When you laugh, your body increases immune cells, as well as antibodies, that help you fight infection.
Simple Joys for the Holiest Day
Rebbetzin Shulamit Bitton-Blau, as remembered by her children and grandchildren Maybe it was because she was an only child, born under miraculous circumstances to her holy parents, Rav Shimon and Beya Cohen, that led to a lifelong joie de vivre for Rebbetzin Shulamit Bitton-Blau. Perhaps it was the massive and beautiful Birkas Kohanim endowed on the community from the shuls in Djerba each Shabbos, with priestly families who could trace their lineage centuries back.
Stuffed Shells - Mishpacha
Stuffed Shells A classic budget-friendly dinner that rivals what you’ll find in any high-end restaurant.
Roasted Vegetables
In the kitchen, little is as straightforward as roasting vegetables. Olive oil, salt, and pepper to coat your vegetables of choice, which then get bronzed in the oven while you busy yourself with other tasks. But sometimes you face a tray full of limp, soggy vegetables that leave much to be desired when you were aiming for crispy and caramelized. Because it’s not such a cinch to perfect the art of roasting vegetables.
From Grieving to Giving
Eli’s a good boy, he’s learning well, he has lots of friends. Instead, to my dismay, the rebbi said, “I think Eli is losing his geshmak for learning. He’s not enjoying the learning as much as he did at the beginning of the year.” What am I supposed to do now? I thought to myself. I’m not a mechanech! But then another thought occurred to me: If the Torah commands us, “V’shinantam l’vanecha,” it must be that every father has the ability to teach his son Torah.
In My Own Backyard
S unday, July 26, 1981. The scene: a small, one-room church filled with rows of pews.The congregation sings a hymn, after which Joseph, the minister, invites anyone who wishes to confess their sins or be baptized to come forward. A young college student, a Jewish girl named Michelle, walks up to the front, surprising the minister. Joseph’s eyes widen. “Are you sure?” he asks. “Yes,” the girl says.
If They Don’t Want Us
T he other day, I was sitting at a simchah beside a woman from ~my neighborhood who has a 26-year-old single daughter, and she was telling me how hard it is to get a yes from a good boy. “Just yesterday another boy said no to my Yocheved,” she lamented. “And this boy sounded so perfect for her! But I guess it’s not bashert.
Playing to My Strengths
I started playing the piano at the age of five. When I was eight, my father took me to play for a family friend who was a concert violinist with the Chicago Symphony. After hearing me play Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 16, he told my father, “This boy is talented. He can go into music. But music is a hard career.” I heard, “This boy is talented.
The True Dispatcher
I slowly came to view my work as a form of hishtadlut to support my family as well as an opportunity for kiddush Hashem, rather than purely as a vehicle for money and personal fulfillment L ike many Israelis, I acquired my high-tech training — and my fluency in English — in the army, where I served in a top-secret communications unit.
Treatment Plan - Mishpacha
I was perfectly healthy, with no risk factors for the disease. No one in my family was sick. And I was a good person! Fifteen minutes before Shabbos in Eretz Yisrael I got a call from my brother Danny. “I’m in Las Vegas” he said in a thick voice. “I just overdosed.
Just Pareve - Mishpacha
“I think they’re a little jealous of you,” he replied. “You’re so poised and confident, and you have such a sunny personality, maybe they feel a little intimidated.” W When I got married, at the age of 18, the words “enmeshment” and “narcissism” didn’t exist in my vocabulary. I come from a family of four siblings, some of whom are very different from one another but all of whom care deeply for each other and would go out of their way to help any of the others.
Love the Convert
M y mother hid her non-Jewish background even before she converted. When she was 12, she slept over at the home of the one Jewish girl in her public school class, Lena, and was instantly enchanted by Judaism — even though Lena and her family were nonreligious. Lena shared with my mother whatever she knew about Judaism (which wasn’t much), and from then on, my mother devoured anything connected to Judaism, much to the puzzlement and chagrin of her family.
A Pledge Fulfilled
“I ma who am I going to marry?” My oldest daughter Elisheva Bulow was four years old when she asked me the question. “When it’s time for you to get married we’ll find the right boy for you ” I assured her. Fifteen years later Elisheva returned from seminary in Eretz Yisrael and informed me that she was ready to get married. Now it was time for me to make good on my pledge. But how on earth was I going to find my daughter a shidduch?
Just a Regular Person
And then my husband Yehoshua was diagnosed with a rare untreatable degenerative disease. He had been complaining of some strange aches and pains and a visit to the doctor followed by a blood test followed by an MRI revealed that he was very very ill. Suddenly we crossed over into the suffering side of society. We lived in Eretz Yisrael and the doctors there told us there was nothing they could do for Yehoshua.
Weighty Deliberations
B ack in my days as a bochur I was a dream guest the guy who would take second and third helpings of cholent and help the hostess by polishing off the last piece of kugel on the platter so she shouldn’t be stuck with leftovers. I was also very athletic one of the first guys to be picked on a baseball or basketball team. I enjoyed playing sports and I played a lot — during bein hasedorim in the evenings and on Friday and Motzaei Shabbos.
Theresa May - Mishpacha
Britain’s second female prime minister is the daughter of a vicar a former Bank of England employee who joined Parliament in 1997. Her rise to the top political job in England was steep and sudden. After Prime Minister David Cameron failed to persuade his countrymen to remain in the European Union he felt obliged to resign his post.
With Every Stitch
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I was just three years old when my Bubby’s friend asked me the question. “A doctor” I promptly replied. “You mean a nurse” Bubby corrected me. “No” I said. “I mean a doctor.” This was in the 1960s when female doctors were a rarity and a frum female doctor was almost unheard of. Nobody besides me ever imagined I’d be a doctor. I was a girl I came from a chassidic family and I hated school.
Checkmate - Mishpacha
I was never officially diagnosed with Asperger’s. Growing up in the ’70s and ’80s no one even knew what that was. My rebbeim and teachers loved me because I was the smartest kid in the class; my classmates hated me for the same reason. I was friendly with the few other gifted kids — the geeks — but the rest of the kids either bullied me or wanted nothing to do with me. When people talked about body language I had no idea what they were referring to.
One Mechilah to Go, with Fries and a Coke
Kalman covered the receiver with his hand. “Looks like we’re the last ones to find out about all this,” he mouthed. “Even the car rental company knew before us.” “Let’s leave the technicalities aside for now,” Kalman said to Bryna. “I’d like to understand what happened here.” Bryna cleared her throat. “Rivky has had some serious reservations about the shidduch ever since the engagement.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with C.
Contact C., search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack