Schmooze with Suze

Send us Fan Mail Back in the 1900s, I was no different than any immigrant kid lucky enough to have parents with jobs. Both of my parents worked long hours and my sister and I were what is known as “latchkey kids.” When we got off the school bus, we let ourselves in. But the difference between the latchkey kids in our neighborhood was that we had the Ditmas Avenue branch of the Brooklyn Public libr...

Send us Fan Mail Culturally, I used to be tzemisht - which is one way in Yiddish to say confused. Born in this country, but English wasn’t my first, or even my second, language.  My family was confident that I would learn to speak it the old-fashioned way, by watching Sesame Street and General Hospital… And by going to “programs in the Y.” In my childhood neighborhood, the center of Jewish life wa...

Send us Fan Mail I always had a lot of words. Probably the byproduct of being raised surrounded by non-English speakers. There was a language barrier. It separated them- so it separated me. But not just the words- the nuance, the inflection. Also the frustration, resentment, despair, shame— all of my discomfort stifled by the sounds that made up their sentence fragments.  And when they struggled o...

Send us Fan Mail Why does the ‘why’ behind historical events matter in shaping our present and future? How are we, as parents and citizens, responding to the responsibilities of raising the next generation with strong values and cultural identity, especially amidst the explosion of the information age?  I want to delve into the significance of context in portraying history and the risks of misrepr...

Send us Fan Mail Are you ready to meet my coach?  In this episode I share why I am inspired by my spiritual trainer, international speaker, educator and author Ruchi Koval- who cultivated a program designed to make me the judgmentally-leanest, non-meanest, finding-a-better-way-than-to-fight-machinist I have ever been! In her book Soul Construction: Shape Your Character using 8 Steps From The Timel...

Send us Fan Mail Back in the 1900s, when I was away at college, the first high holidays rolled around. It was such a schlep home, that I opted to stay on campus.  Considering this was my first time not sitting beside my mommy at my parents' place of worship where I had grown up, I remember being excited to shop around. I had only *heard* of other denominations. And after 12 solid years of har...

Send us Fan Mail (This episode was taped on May 16, 2023. ELECTION DAY in Jacksonville, FL and the results were unknown.) I have a friend who has been seeing a therapist for about 15 years and one day she says, “I feel like this is all still here.”  And the therapist responds, “it always will be.” My friend becomes upset and she shouts, “how could you say that? I thought, after all, this time I wo...

Send us Fan Mail Back in the 1900s when I was a student, we learned something that was not history or social studies. It was called “Current Events.”   At the start of the 7th grade, I brought home a mimeographed permission slip that asked for cash or a check so that a copy of the New York Times would be delivered to my homeroom desk, Monday through Friday. I learned to love the sections... each d...

Send us Fan Mail In my very first episode I spoke about societal needs. The ones we know about… and the ones we are still learning to understand.   Sometimes just thinking about all that NEED is unbearable. And so I remember to think like Mr. Rogers and look for the helpers. And then I remind myself that I’m not a bystander- I’m an upstander! So it is MY responsibility to be the change I wish to s...

Send us Fan Mail Back in the 1900s, after you took your SATs, colleges and universities would flood your parents ACTUAL, LITERAL mailbox with brochures and catalogs.  While this sounds like a “barrage of garbage”… it was, in fact, very wanted and welcome because back then, the only other way to know about colleges was in your guidance counsellors office, the local public library, or if you bought...

Send us Fan Mail In the early 2000s I worked near South Street Seaport in NYC. Each day I would take my lunch overlooking the East River- the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges visible from my office. A decade later, based on the upper west side, every day instead of lunch, I would lace up my sneakers, and run along the Hudson River. The water propelled me with its energy- its life.  My...

Send us Fan Mail Back in the 1990s, my daily commute to downtown Manhattan had me shlepping past the Fulton fish market to my fancy office building with windows overlooking South Street Seaport. The Meatpacking District, Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem… Undesirable and not on a real estate listing anyone would touch. Until someone had the vision to see the possibility and make that investment. And once it...

Send us Fan Mail This season on Schmooze With Suze we are embarking on a tour of icons here in Northeast Florida. What makes here the place and now the time?  Well, let’s start with what is an icon? An icon is a person or a thing widely admired especially for having great influence or significance in a particular sphere. Do we need icons?  And that is what we are going to tackle today… Name droppi...

Send us Fan Mail Rise and shine! It’s a beautiful day for a beautiful day. Be happy. Be kind. Always do your best. Think good and it will be good.   I sprinkle positive messages to my kids and myself throughout the day. Why? Because studies show that we grow, flourish and thrive when that is our environment.   Alternatively, the effects of negativity- in environment, language and attitude can be p...

Send us Fan Mail In April, I attended an Interfaith Panel Discussion followed by a Kosher for Passover- Iftar break the fast.  The discussion was about what comes after death… But I was totally taken by the life in the room. The connection to God, and commitment to curiosity, was palpable. There seemed to be no wrong answers. The program began with the Jewish evening prayers and concluded with som...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to Season 2! In Season 1, I asked you to borrow my binoculars and have a look at this city of Jacksonville- our strengths and opportunities. As we stand poised on the precipice of a new mayor, I wanted to gain perspective from what many call the BEST in the business here.  I want to know- does authenticity, transparency and empathy have to exist in order to cultivate...

Send us Fan Mail Once upon a time, when I was a young and idealistic student, I used to look at the world and see all the solutions that seemed SO obvious. And so I tried to change the world. But I was just one person. And mostly inexperienced… And that didn’t work... So I went back to my city and saw all the ills facing society and set to telling them how to fix it. But they couldn’t hear me… So...

Send us Fan Mail Upon entering the main sanctuary of every synagogue that I have ever been in, I recall seeing the following verse embroidered, inscribed or emblazoned above the arc, ‏דע לפני מי אתה עומד-  Know before whom you stand. In comedy circles we say, know your audience. When I am out with my husband in a group, I sometimes see that look in his eyes and nudge him before he tells that joke...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever heard the term “safe word?”  While YOU may be thinking 50 shades of grey, I’M talking 50 shades of red. As the primary caregiver to my children, their evolving emotional, physical and mental needs are becoming more and more… consuming to me.  Their booboos are no longer cuts and scrapes, rather a myriad of moments that are shaping their formative years. Those newly e...

Send us Fan Mail Boro Park, Brooklyn, New York circa the late 70s where I grew up was a mix of multiculturalism- if you count Irish, Italian and Jewish as diversity. When my dark, Sephardic looking Israeli mom went apartment shopping with her very blonde and blue-eyed, soon to be mother-in-law, she was asked to wait outside. Repeatedly. The “cleaner” was not welcome for a tour.  About a year later...

Send us Fan Mail Can I tell you a secret…? It wasn't until I was in middle school that I was aware of “mixed marriages” which, by the way, in MY community meant someone marrying not another Jewish person. Growing up in my shtetl of first-generation immigrants, we married amongst our mother tongue- which was pretty much the same as our religion. Capisce? Lamurit? Entiendes? Farshteist?  By the...

Send us Fan Mail You may wonder when it is that I honed in on my smartass skills as a superpower for good- and not evil…? Back in the 1990s, my hometown of New York City was a real life landscape of the bleak and the boom. The dawn of the decade followed twenty years of continuous decay and 1990 brought an all-time record high in violent crime. Concurrently, the Wall Street boom invigorated the ec...

Send us Fan Mail Do you dread get togethers, holidays or social events because of a particular person or people? Perhaps you put off conversations at work because it's easier than confronting a coworker? Or maybe you talk about difficult issues, instead of addressing them head on? How can we navigate the personal, professional, and social conversations that we struggle with...? And that is wh...

Send us Fan Mail For nearly 45 years, my Dad would mark a Valentine's Day, which also happens to be my mom’s birthday, with chocolate and flowers. A large dozen roses or giant box of chocolates for my mom and single rose or smaller chocolates for my 3 sisters and me. But when my own husband gifted me with chocolates and flowers on our first married Valentine’s Day, I was seriously disappointe...

Send us Fan Mail Remember, the show, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, he told kids when they saw something scary to “look for the helpers.” We have scary things going on in our backyard - but we also have those helpers Mr. Rogers told us to look for.  Most recently, when he saw the need to be that helper, he and his family “walked the talk” by establishing the Together Strong Community Fund. It’s a vehicl...