Oliver Pollak

We learn to drink from and with family, friends, and colleagues starting at the family table, temptations of fake I.D.s, followed by college, Navy, coworkers, restaurant wine tasting, and other influences. Turning 21 is...

OCEANSIDE, California — What does family vacation mean? It used to be an oxymoron ranking with giant shrimp, military intelligence, and other improbables. Destination vacations, national parks, beaches, mountains, desert, camping, rv’s, condos, five-star...

The 38th annual San Francisco Jewish Film festival is in full swing. From July 19 to August 5, Bay Area theatres in San Francisco, Albany, Palo Alto, San Rafael, and Oakland will screen 67 Jewish...

We identify role models in the family, high school, college, graduate school, law school, synagogue, and  in our chosen professions. As we meet new people they may join the pantheon; when some fall from grace, we...

I had heard on NPR that Steve Costa and Kate Levinson wanted to sell a bookstore they had owned since 2002 in this delightful Northern California coastal town, and get on with new life...

We come to the books we read from many directions. It could be newspaper and magazine reviews, suggestions from trusted friends, NPR reviews, looking at bookstore recent arrivals, ‘the book club is now reading,’...

Persecuted. Engaged. Married. Marriages of convenience in exile by Sabine Bergler and Irene Messinger, Jewish Museum Vienna, 2018, 147 pages We marry for love, romance, money, and to procreate and extend family lineages. Marriages of convenience...

I am now the same age as my father was when he died, 74. For the first time, I am walking around his birthplace, Vienna, with my sister, gazing at the city he loved...

RICHMOND, California — Some observations suggest sharing. They may be intimate, personal, or idiosyncratic. The task is to make them meaningful for a wider reading audience. My mission is to identify stories by Jews...

RICHMOND, California — The measurement of time changes after you retire. You do not have to go to work, and you can do pretty much what you want to do within financial and physical limits....