A Daughter’s Kaddish

My Year of Grief, Devotion, and Healing

by Sarah Birnbach

A woman breaks with Jewish tradition to honor her late father in this moving memoir of faith, grief, and transformation.

A Daughter’s Kaddish recounts Sarah Birnbach’s year-long odyssey through an unfamiliar world of prayer. To honor her beloved father following his death, Sarah undertakes a Jewish mourning ritual historically reserved for males—despite her father’s request that she hire a male to do so.

A novice worshipper and single working mother, Sarah commits to re-citing the Mourner’s Kaddish every morning and evening in the presence of a quorum of ten people (a minyan) in synagogue for eleven months. She incorporates this traditional religious and spiritual practice into her already hectic twenty-first century life while struggling with the distress of grief. As she travels the country for work, Sarah must find a synagogue with twice-daily prayer services in every city she visits, an undertaking that brings many challenges—such as encountering gender-based objections to her prayer practice, her daughter’s near-fatal car accident, and her mother’s dismissiveness—along with many blessings.

Throughout her year of mourning, Sarah learns the importance of community to help mourners heal. A Daughter’s Kaddish reminds us that grief is a universal experience with no expiration date, and that ancient rituals have a place in our contemporary society.