Yiddish Yoga: Ruthie's Adventures in Love, Loss, and the Lotus Position
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About this ebook
Meet Ruthie: a recently widowed New York City Jewish grandmother who doesn't necessarily come to yoga with the most open of minds. But when her granddaughter Stephanie gives her a year of yoga classes as a gift ("I think it will help you grieve, Bubby"), she doesn't want to risk offending her.
At first, Ruthie is skeptical of yoga and its promise of renewal, healing, and transformation ("You know what's wrong with yoga? They haven't mastered the art of kvetching!"). She can't resist poking fun at some of the new words and rituals she encounters, translating the exotic language of Yoga into the more familiar idiom of her native Yiddish culture.
As Ruthie's journey progresses from week to week, she forges new paths, new postures, and unexpected friendships, slowly overcoming her grief. Yiddish Yoga is a poignant, witty, and human story of love in its many expressions—between grandmother and granddaughter, between an older woman and her younger yoga teacher, between a widow and her beloved husband of fifty years. As Ruthie learns to let go of the past without forgetting, she shows us how to embrace the present with new vigor, strength, and courage—and, above all, makes us laugh.
Lisa Grunberger
Lisa Grunberger holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Religions from the University of Chicago Divinity School and teaches writing in the English department at Temple University in Philadelphia. She has taught yoga for many years, and is also a published poet and performer. A native New Yorker from Long Island who grew up with an Israeli mother and a Viennese father, Lisa was immersed in Yiddishkeit from a young age. Yiddish Yoga is her first book.
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Reviews for Yiddish Yoga
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- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Newcastle Press is calling this debut a "hardcover gift book" since it's a slim volume full of original drawings by the author to go along with her often hilarious text. Ruthie is a recently widowed 72 year old Jewish woman living in New York City whose granddaughter has given her a year of yoga lessons "To help you grieve, Bubby. It will be healing for you." Ruthie's adventure into the new language and rituals of yoga will be healing for every reader of this book, since we all know that laughter is the best medicine! The reader will learn some things too--there is a Yiddish AND a yoga glossary included. But most importantly, they will learn that loss and advanced years do NOT have to slow anyone down or keep anyone from changing. This book is a gift all right--a giftof warm joy and slightly teary eyes to everyone who reads it.