Author: Viva Hammer

  I live with my parents and my children on a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and Sydney Harbor. The weather is temperate, never cold and hardly ever hot. The beaches are pristine; people dream of their next saltwater dive and their property values. For thirty years I was ten thousand miles from this Eden […]

Bruria delivering a devar Torah at her Bat Mitzvah. Photos courtesy of the Bleich family Good frum girls don’t make Bat Mitzvahs–such was the prevailing view when I was growing up. And so when I turned twelve, I was proud to mark the occasion by doing– nothing. At the Australian day school I attended, this […]