“Sholeh Wolpé's Abacus of Loss is a brave, honest, and wise accounting of the inherent worth of a woman's life and her magnificent power to adapt and thrive.”..
When I was young, my house had a magic door.
The directory lists nearly 700 American scholars who recently received Fulbright awards for university lecturing and advanced research abroad.
Outside that door was the small Pennsylvania town where I grew up. Main Street ran in front of our house bearing the standard downtown features: a bank, a news stand, the hardware store, the auto parts supply, and other retail businesses.
Families strolled the streets, particularly on weekends looking at the displays of furniture in Kaufman's giant window, the posters for movies hanging behind the glass at the Rex Theatre, and the mannequins, missing hands or fingers, sporting the latest fashions in the windows of my aunt's clothing store.
In those days, the early 1960s, the small businesses in a town like Masontown fed the community's needs for food, clothing, and shelter.
My family's shops took their positions on Main Street as well: Nader's Shoe Store, Nader's Department Store, and the Modernnaire Restaurant.
From the face of it, our businesses looked like any others and we gratefully satisfied the local mother trying to buy church-wo