Alone Together on Dan Street

Breathtaking and powerful. Shows the universality of the quarantine experience. --Heidi Rabinowitz and Susan Kusel, The Book of Life PodcastA lovely story of how a little girl in Jerusalem turnsthe challenge of Corona Virus into an opportunity for community and song. Itoffers a wonderful way to reflect on how we can be our best when we think ofothers and come together. --Dr. Rona Milch Novick, Dean of the Azrieli School at Yeshiva University and authorof Mommy, Can You Stop the Rain? We come back to the very recent past in Alone Together on Dan Street, in which Erica Lyons gives a hopeful but notsugarcoated retelling of the first spring and Passover of the pandemic. Whilepeople in New York City banged on pots with their windows open daily at 7 p.m.and Italians sang out their windows, Israelis moved their Seders on to theirbalconies so that anyone who lived alone could have a Seder surrounded by othervoices. Lyons captures the monotony and claustrophobia of those early days ofthe pandemic perfectly, in recounting the story of Mira: "[n]ow the days were allmixed up … [a]nd seasons were only things that happened on the balcony. Everypicture [Mira] drew was of the same building across the street." She alsojuxtaposes the fact that, while for people who lived by themselves, thepandemic was especially isolating, for those who lived with families in smallapartments, it could, somewhat ironically, be hard to find a place to be alone.A lovely reminder of how the pandemic that separated us also brought ustogether. --Rachel Fremmer, Tablet Magazine