Jeff Kelly Lowenstein

Sometimes you don't realize how heavily an issue is weighing on you until something causes it to lift.

That happened to me this morning when I pressed the "Submit" button on the United tickets we were buying for Dunreith, Aidan and me to go to Dad's hometown in Germany in...

Although of course we never know how much time we have to live, it's pretty safe to say that Dunreith and I are in the middle of life.

In this season, we...

I've got to give Laura Kaeppeler a lot of credit.

While I'm generally not a fan of beauty pageants, the recently crowned Miss America 2012 showed guts and character in her choice of cause: supporting and mentoring the children of incarcerated parents.

It was a choice that she...

The life, death and legacy of /king-bio.html">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who would have turned 83 on Sunday, has been thoroughly chronicled, analyzed and celebrated.

From a national holiday to hundreds of streets in cities across the country to scores of books, people can learn about King,...

I still remember reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the first time.

Having absorbed a general awareness of the novella's contents through watching Bugs Bunny cartoons, I was surprised to read about how decent and respectable the London doctor was.

Hyde's vicious behavior was...

In news that alternately brought me sadness and relief, I learned today that Gary Adelman, Mom's oldest cousin, died yesterday at age 76.

The source of my sadness is obvious.

Gary was one of the most courageous and vital people I ever met, and I loved him deeply.

Blinded after...

A lot of times you hear about a funeral being a celebration, but it doesn't feel that way.

With Elzie Whittington, grandmother of childhood friends Scooter and Teo who I always knew as "Grandma," it was truly the...

I thought my trip to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Conference took a long time before I met some of the journalists who traveled with the We Have Faith Caravan.

That's a band of musicians, artists and youth activists for 15 days, covering thousands of miles and driving...

Before Saturday night I had never watched animated tuna fish cans fornicate, received a gift bag of doggie treats drawn from the leftovers of homemade beer, and eaten low country South Carolina oysters roasted after having...

I wrote Tuesday about Gabriele Thimm's coordination of a memorial ceremony for Essen's Jewish community on the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Here are her words from what sounded like a very memorable evening:

Yesterday evening was moving.

The pupils were very concentraded. The darkness was...

On a crisp Halloween morning, 55-year-old Salvador Cervantes approached the red brick Illinois Department of Human Services building...

Gabriele Thimm in red sweater with some of her students.

The anniversary of Kristallnacht has always been significant for our family, but this year will have an unexpected layer of meaning.

The "Night of the Broken Glass"...

At Hoy we are engaged in a year-long project looking at Latino workers and communities in the Midwest and the degree to which enforcement agencies are, or are not, protecting them.

Thus far, we can say that at the federal level it's not a pretty story.

Take Wright...

/dp/0679755330">A Raisin in the Sun is an American classic.

Set in post-World War II Chicago and based in large part on her family's experience, Lorraine Hansberry's play tells the tale of the Youngers, an African-American family set on realizing their version of the American Dream and buying a...