the last book I ever read (The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family, excerpt three)

from The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family by Joshua Cohen, the 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction:

Judy . . . maybe the one commonality that both Edith’s parents and mine would acknowledge was their love for her, which they expressed through the same question incessantly asked: who loves you more . . . Oma and Opa? Bubbe and Zeyde?

It was because of this competition that our holidays were vexed. Not spiritually, but logistically. We had to split our time, the tradition being to spend each night of a holiday with a different set of parents and alternating the order year to year: one year first-night supper at mine, second night at Edith’s; the next year first-night supper at Edith’s, second night at mine. I’m convinced this is the reason why the rabbis made all the major Jewish holidays last not for one night but two, at least in the Diaspora—to ensure that the Steinmetzes and the Blums wouldn’t have to mix like spoiled meat and rotten dairy.