| Website | https://MichaelMissing.com |
| Medium | https://medium.com/@michael.hickins |
| The Silk Factory | https://www.amazon.com/Silk-Factory-Finding-Holocaust-Heritage-ebook/dp/B0C2C8SF8R |
IFTAS recently received a query about a former volunteer with the Moderator Advisory Council project we wound down a few months ago, so we've posted a short clarification on the project's history and the volunteer in question: https://about.iftas.org/2024/12/30/iftas-statement-on-moderator-advisory-council-participation/
We expect all IFTAS volunteers, staff, and moderator community members to communicate and behave respectfully, inclusively and with care. Our Community Participation Guidelines are posted here: https://connect.iftas.org/community-participation-guidelines/
Why I Bought Myself a Mogen David Bracelet for Father’s Day
Sometimes dads screw up. I screw up all the time, as a dad, and even in my non-dad functions. One way my dad screwed up is that he changed his name from Hirschkind to Hickins. Rhymes with chickens, not quite Dickens, as American as apple pie and Doinkuss. Slim pickins indeed; no American would have thought of Americanizing himself with a moniker like that.
http://michaelmissing.com/2024/06/12/why-i-bought-myself-a-mogen-david-bracelet-for-fathers-day/
Departures and Returns
I ordered a book of poems by Paul Zweig, because poetry is the muse to my fiction, because it pertains to the novel I’m currently working on, and because I have a peculiar connection to Paul Zweig. I met my first wife in 1984, a young French woman staying at a friend’s apartment whom I happened to espy at the Hungarian Pastry Shop, a smoky mainstay of Columbia student life for the past 60-plus years that features bottomless mugs of coffee,…
http://michaelmissing.com/2024/05/31/departures-and-returns/
Yom HaShoah Today
Holocaust memorial mural in Wiesbaden, Germany. Today is Yom HaShoah. But it’s not any Yom HaShoah. It’s the first Holocaust Remembrance Day since Hamas attacked Israel last October 7, an event which has ignited yet more antisemitism across the United States and has divided college students, left-leaning people, and even (perhaps I should say, especially) Jews. I experienced this during a Torah study session last Saturday, as members of our mostly…
How to Interpret Yom Hashoah
We all come to Yom Hashoah -- Holocaust Remembrance Day – by different paths. For me, it’s an ongoing education into my family’s history, which I detail in my memoir, The Silk Factory: Finding Threads of My Family’s True Holocaust Story. And this year in particular, Yom Hashoah was jolted into my consciousness by a photo someone shared on Facebook of a group of Jewish students celebrating a Passover Seder while occupying the Columbia…
http://michaelmissing.com/2024/04/30/how-to-interpret-yom-hashoah/
Vermin, Poisoned Blood, and the Jews
As asylum-seekers drown in the Rio Grande under the indifferent eyes of the Texas National Guard, and as Donald Trump celebrates his primary victory in Iowa this week, Jews especially should take heed of language such as poisoned blood and vermin used when discussing immigration. Trump has promised that if elected, he will strip citizenship from people born in the US of immigrant parents – even Nikki Haley, his rival for the GOP…
http://michaelmissing.com/2024/01/18/vermin-poisoned-blood-and-the-jews/
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