= snoozefest, right?

We sit behind a table and take turns addressing the audience. The moderator introduces. The writers pontificate. Another panel on “[Jewish] Women of the Book” is forgotten almost before it’s over.

Not this time. Thanks to Bari Weiss, Associate Books Editor at the Wall Street Journal, the questions were not all softballs. She was downright provocative – in the good way. And fellow-panelists Elisa Albert (After Birth)and Ruth Andrew Ellenson (The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt) were honest, smart and funny. We disagreed with each other. We laughter at each other’s jokes. Bari kept things moving. We could have danced all night.

Whine me no whines about the death of the Jews or the decline of Jewish culture.

I did not say anything about the age gap that separated me and the three women seated to my left. But out here in the silence of cyberspace, I will admit to having kvelled as befits a person old enough to be their mother even as I reveled in being numbered among them – as if I was one of the cool girls, too.