Daily Podcasts Video Research

Discovering Jewish Joy in My Grandmother’s Closet

JL;DR SUMMARY Vivienne Gilliar-Smith recounts a poignant moment of connection to her Jewish heritage through a dress that belonged to her great-grandmother. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

Jewish IdentityTraditionBat MitzvahHeritageLegacyJewish JoyFamily ConnectionsGreat GrandmotherSeamstressVintage Clothing

Places mentioned

Port Washington, New York, United States
"Vivienne Gilliar-Smith is an 11th-grader from Port Washington, N.Y., who loves reading, figure skating and studying history."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 71917
Cairo Source ID 44
Retrieved 2026-01-05 05:31:05 UTC
Curated 2026-01-05 08:30:31 UTC