B"H I think the article is very nice. Thank you YNET. On the chicken soup, though, I am not sure that is superstition. Boiling soup in winter has a couple of real benefits: 1) The water vapor is good for the lungs. In the winter, it is usually very dry as the humidity decreases, exposes the lungs to infection. Also, the salt-water in the broth is helpful to clean throught infection. Plus heating the soup usually raises the temperature of the house a little bit closer to room temperature. When the water vapor condenses, it cleans the air of contagens which tend to induce condensation of water droplets on cold windows, taking them out of the air. In short, I think the chicken soup definately has some backing to it. 2) keeping babies less exposed does keep them away from disease of the outside world to an extent. I think that is prudent when a baby is first born. Some, for instance, are born in restricted zones in a hospital even because of that. I enjoyed the article very much. Thank you so much and happy Shabbos!

You forgot to add that there's brandy in the gogel-mogel. In fact, that's the whole point of drinking it. It has no medicinal value without it.

Touching wood is a superstition related to the idea of touching the cross. Touching iron ( Italy), realted to the nails of the cross. Crossing fingers the same. Avodah Zarah. And it is terrible when at you see ignorants at Israeli TV saying "Machzikim-leja etzbaot". Petach Tikva was built by hilonim pioneers, and there was no intersection on the form of a cross in the original town. Cross has done enoug bad to Jews.

Enjoyable to read... keep 'em coming.

These are Ashkenazi customs. Mizrahi Jews from Arab countries knock on wood and say Chemsa, chemsa (5, 5 in Arabic). We even burn incense and jump over it 7 times to ward off the evil eye.

that Grandma didn't put a little red piece of wool, or a little red satin ribbon somewhere to ward off the evil eye, round the wrist, or under the bed/pram sheet. My 'Booba' did! bis hundert und zwanzig.. (Ma Booba not Ma Donna)

Mine too, but it was only in the case of a very small child, and it went off as soon as things were better. She used her own ribbons, didn't have to pay big bucks for the extra blessing.

Don't know if you 'suffered' this one too . We had to PULL OUR LEFT EAR if someone sneezed while a dead person was mentioned!! Quite by instinct, I once called it out, to one of our sons, and his reply was 'Imma! Straight to Geha'!!

My mother put under my pillow and under my brothers' pillows a knife to protect us from "Lillith" . Eight days to my brothers and 30 days to my sisters.

Brandy??? It was a shot or two of shnops for my family.

forgot the raw eggs in Gogol-Mogol. http://www.russianfoods.com/recipes/item0002C/default.asp

Although linguistically gogl-mogl comes from Russian, it is made differently in the Russian and Jewish homes. Thus, Russian gogol'-mogol' is a delicacy, made from a beaten-up egg-yolk, ground out with sugar, and usually cacao powder and butter, with no remedial properties. On the contrary, the numerous naturalistic studies, performed by our bobes with the Jewish gogol'-mogol', have found it effective in both sore throat and common cold alike (second only to "a golden yakhele"). With gogl-mogl it takes only a week to recover, without it - 7 days. Double-blind studies of the matter are clearly warranted.

And I keep Glock under my pillow.In case my mother in law comes for a visit:-)

I grew up in a house where we used brandy, but I'm sure that schnapps would work just as well. As long as you use something with a high alcohol content, I'm not certain it makes a difference.

Yes, I read that that whole red string on babies is because of Lillith.

Hey, my father does it from eggs and sugar...and its deeeeeelicious!

I was always told not to repair a garment I was wearing at the time(like a quick stitch to a hem that was coming apart). But if I had to, I needed to chew a piece of thread at the same time. Apparently the association was to do with sewing up the shroud that a body is kept in for burial....

Such fun! All of them were my former mother-in-law, z"l, who was just LIKE that! Thanks for the memories.