By Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist Life is all about changes — including this column — as it will be my last one. It turns out I may have played a very small part in hastening the Jewish Sound’s demise. This is not because of the obvious suspect — insipidContinue Reading
By Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist Jews have a long history, until relatively recently, as outsiders. This collective cultural memory served me well during the recent Seahawks playoff run, which ended in heartbreaking fashion for most — but not all — of the local denizens. One exception: the author ofContinue Reading
By Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist I recently visited Los Angeles, which delivered a sharp reminder, in the form of spectacular weather, that I don’t live there. Every choice we make represents a set of tradeoffs. Seattle is glorious — for at best six months of the year. The restContinue Reading
By Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist Is it just me, or has the sense of not completely fitting in, which Jews traditionally experience at Christmas, been a bit lacking this season in the Pacific Northwest? As a child growing up in suburban New Jersey in the 1960s and ’70s, aContinue Reading
By Ed Harris A Jewish friend of mine once described Thanksgiving as his favorite holiday. He said Thanksgiving is the only celebration of the season that serves to unite people of all faiths, unlike Christmas and Hanukkah, which are drawn from entirely different religious traditions. In making this assessment, however,Continue Reading
By Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist Whew! The cycle of major Jewish holidays has finally come to an end. The succession of celebrations and observances began with Rosh Hashanah amid a cacophony of shofar blasts, continued with the hunger-pang inducing somberness of Yom Kippur, followed by Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and,Continue Reading
By Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist You can recognize the approach of the High Holidays at the Harris household by the sight of my family members forcing their hands over their ears and fleeing the premises as if their very lives were at stake. The panic is set off ratherContinue Reading
By Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist On a recent trip with my now-adult daughter to see family in Florida, I reminisced about her initial visit to the Sunshine State, when she hadn’t even reached her first birthday, and wondered where all the time went. One minute, she was an adorableContinue Reading
By Ed Harris Seattle residents like to complain that they never know for sure when summer will finally start. I, however, have a sure-fire technique for picking the last cloudy, overcast, unseasonably cool day of the season: The precise moment we leave town for our annual family vacation. For severalContinue Reading
By Ed Harris Households across America this month celebrated Father’s Day. June, with its “Dads and Grads,” is probably a great month for Hallmark, especially now that most of humanity has embraced Facebook as a way to offer free birthday congratulations, a transgression I have committed more than a fewContinue Reading
By Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist I knew being a father would bring surprises: Becoming a “Dancing Dad” is one, however, I never saw coming. I am in fact a terrible dancer, much to my wife’s disappointment, as her favorite leisure-time activity when we first met was folk dancing. EarlyContinue Reading
Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article entitled “The Long (Long) Wait to be a Grandparent.” Tell me about it. We baby boomers took longer to marry and have kids than prior generations, and millennials are pushing these traditional milestones of adulthood out evenContinue Reading
By Ed Harris Recently, my wife and youngest son, Izzy, went to Los Angeles on midwinter school break. The first day of our vacation was spent at Disneyland. While at the Magic Kingdom I reminisced about my first Disney experience, at Disney World in Florida, which took place on aContinue Reading
America is a mobile society, and a lot of people have moved away from the hometowns where their sports loyalties initially formed.Continue Reading
By Ed Harris, JTNews Columnist What if I never moved from New Jersey to Seattle with my wife and then-infant daughter over 20 years ago? How might life have been different if we remained in the New York area? This thought occurred over winter break on a trip to BocaContinue Reading
By Ed Harris, JTNews Columnist “I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians… [W]here did the idea come from that… we aren’t allowed to worship God?” — Ben Stein, from CBS Sunday Morning, Dec. 18, 2005Continue Reading
By Ed Harris , JTNews Columnist It’s time to celebrate Thanksgiving, and like all families, we have our own traditions, some inherited, some of our own creation. Shortly after we moved to Seattle in 1990, my parents gave us a roasting pan as a gift. Before we had moved, myContinue Reading
By Ed Harris , JTNews Columnist Judaism is a religion in which one of the principal values is to honor one’s mother and father, as I’ve tried to explain to my own kids countless times. Yet, the first Jew, Abraham, started his career by rebelling against his own father, Terach,Continue Reading
