Suzanne Kurtz
Latkes and loot: Is Chanukah for grown-ups?
My catalogue-stuffed mailbox was the first reminder that Chanukah, or rather the season of shopping, was fast approaching.
Years of Hebrew school had taught me, despite Chanukah’s usual proximity to Christmas, that Jews were not supposed to commemorate the miracle of a small jar of oil by collecting lots of loot.
Still, my family photo albums are filled with pictures of my brother and me posing with our loot, smiling (or not, depending on the loot), near a plate of latkes as the chanukiyah glowed just off to the side. Those were happy days.
The second day: To be (in shul) or not to be
Steven Levine is matter-of-fact about his family’s upcoming plans for Rosh HaShanah.
At the dinner table with his wife, Leslie, everyone will share resolutions, round-robin style. He will take the day off from his job at the U.S. Olympic Committee and his three children won’t go to school in order to attend synagogue.
But only on the first day — it is no two-day holiday for this family.
“It’s all cost-benefit analysis,” says Levine, 45, a risk-management director from suburban Denver.
First, Olympic gold; now, a Jewish journey
If you watched the U.S. women's gymnastics team during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, you remember Kerri Strug — or you remember the vault. 
Despite a badly injured ankle, Strug nailed her crucial final vault on one leg, clinching the first team gold medal in women's gymnastics for the Americans. Her coach, the legendary Bela Karolyi, carried Strug to the podium to join her teammates, crowned the Magnificent Seven, to collect her medal.
