My Yom Kippur experience in Germany ‘broke my heart open’ | Opinion

Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer
3 min readOct 7, 2022

I was honored that this essay led to a segment where I told my story on NPR’s ‘All Things Considered.’ You can listen here.

The sun streamed through the flimsy window shade in our Munich hostel room, waking me. I grabbed for my water bottle, dehydrated from the night before. My best friend slept soundly in the bunk above me; the room was filled with…

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Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer

Writer, Educator, Mom. Disability advocate. Dog Lover. Teaching online workshops on writing + spiritual growth. www.gabriellekaplanmayer.com