Hidden children of the Holocaust, including Marcel Frydman, Fred Kader, and Tom Jaeger, who gathered in the US, years after the war. (Facebook)

There is nothing simple about being a self.

For my 4-year-old daughter, Juliet, hearing is optional.

Sophia was born perfect. I had six hours of untempered joy before the routine ALGO test, now widely used to screen newborns for hearing impairment, hinted at a serious problem.

When her daughters were born deaf, a hearing mother faced a choice between spoken language and sign.

From Caroline Leavitt: Jennifer Rosner wrote an extraordinary memoir about being the mother of two deaf children, but it's really more than that. It's truly a novel about what it means to be heard, how deafness is passed on through history and the controversy around sign language and cochlear implants. I was so knocked out by Rosner's book that I asked her if she'd write a guest blog, and she agreed. Many thanks, Jennifer.

This past Yom Kippur, my daughters and I wrote lists; each of us detailed the ways in which we hoped to improve ourselves in the coming year.