Judaism was woven into the fabric of everyday household conversations. But sometimes her family’s faith was tinged with fear. Ms. Angel’s grandmother, a Greek Jew, was a Holocaust survivor who told Ms. Angel bedtime stories of concentration camps, leaving her with night terrors.Writing, too, came to feel like a source of risk. Ms. Angel kept a journal when she was in a rebellious partying phase. Her mother, now a retired judge, read the diary and called the parents of Ms. Angel’s friends to report what their kids were up to on weekends. Ms. Angel was mortified. She partly blamed the journal itself and more or less stopped writ …
