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| Ester'ke
By Rochel Yaffe
"Listen to me, Mrs. Rosenberg," her heavy face was flushed with excitement. "Let me take her. Why should she die, the innocent babe? I will care for her as if she was my own. I never had children, you know. Give her to me..." | |
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| Yisroel
As told to Rochel Yaffe
Yisroel stood in the doorway, cheeks and nose bright red from the cold, snow crusting his thick brown bangs. "My mother is still not here, and I'm frozen. Can I wait inside?" | |
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| Kano
By David Ben-Dor
Do you know where Kano is? Look it up on the map of Nigeria in West Africa | |
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| Waiting
By Jay Litvin
Could others see the countless tiny strands of their separate anxieties
silently knitting them together? Did anyone notice how, though they sat on separate
chairs not touching, they sat as close as two people could without touching? | |
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| Zeida
By Chani Hadad
"It's just not the same anymore without him..." She bows her head. I nod in agreement, but inside I'm singing | |
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| A Long Day For Morgenstern
by Mike Indgin
Morgenstern drove slowly, carefully surveying the suburban neighborhood. Night was when a creature's true colors were revealed. If they were a predatory species, these humans would use the cover of darkness for their darkest deeds... | |
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| The Pirate's Secret
by Mike Indgin
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| Alvin and the Afikoman
by Mike Indgin
After fifteen frenzied minutes, the Finkel cousins returned to the living room. Kevin turned
in the report. "Sorry, Dad. For a small house, there's a lot of places to
hide a matzah" | |
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| Love in a Heartbeat
By Dr. Blair P. Grubb
The sole method we had for giving blood was a direct transfusion from one person to another | |
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| The Calling
By Dr. Blair P. Grubb
One morning, when Paul was 7, I received a stat call to the emergency room... "Oh
G-d," I pleaded in my thoughts, "Please not this one. Not him." | |
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| It Should Again See Light
By Dr. Blair P. Grubb
My best friend was a girl of my age named Jeanette. One morning when I came to play, I saw her family being forced at gunpoint into a truck. I ran home and told my mother. "Don't worry," she said, "Jeanette will be back soon..." | |
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| The Summer of the Kishka
By Illana Attia
Here was genuine culture, a living tradition, a way of preparing for Tisha B’Av
that I had never experienced before. It was an awakening, a discovery of
origins. This is where hotdogs come from | |
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| The Bulkhead
By Yaakov Brawer
The death of a thousand cuts would have been preferable. I briefly considered
crawling, until I realized that everyone would be able to see me anyway. | |
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| Mincha
By Yaakov Brawer
In those days there was only one car service in Crown Heights and it was run by Chassidim, a class of people for whom time means nothing | |
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| The Three Visits of Elijah the Prophet
By Yaakov Brawer
At the conclusion of the seder meal, the cup of Elijah was filled and my six year old son, candle in hand, was sent to open the front door, an old fashioned, ponderous wooden structure that was secured with a heavy iron latch... | |
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| Four Boxes of Matzah
By Stan Lapon
"Why," pondered the sad little accountant, "couldn't I get into a government refund loop, instead of a Shmurah Matzah loop? Just my mazel," he said to himself, "everyone else gets money when there is a mistake, I get Matzah." | |
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| Two Candles for Sammy
By Simon Wiesenthal
I first heard of Sammy Rosenbaum in 1965, when a Mrs. Rawicz from Rabka came into my office in Vienna to testify at a War Crimes trial | |
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| The Blanket
Howard Schultz
We were all looking away; we had not known that he was severely afflicted with Parkinson's disease. Then we heard this big bang on the table: "Gentlemen, look at me, and look at me right now. Who can tell me what the lesson of the Holocaust is?" | |
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| "This Is My Torah Scroll"
By Ruth Benjamin
The soldier stared at the boy, fighting back tears. "Over these four terrible years, this is the first live Jewish child I have seen..." | |
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| The Other Side of the Prayer Book
By Yerachmiel Tilles
At first, I was awed by his courage. But the next day I realized, to my horror, that this man was 'renting out' the siddur to people in exchange for bread... | |
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| Kharkov, 1995
By Shmuel Marcus
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| Bubble Gum
By Shmuel Marcus
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| Baruch Israelnaya
By Shmuel Marcus
Fresh snow covers the ground, thinking I’m too young to know. On the other side of the pit four Russians dressed like railroad or construction workers look me up and down. I try not to look back. | |
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| Praying in Kharkov
By Shmuel Marcus
His one hand held a wooden cane, the other somehow was suddenly on my shoulder. "Can you davven?" he whispered | |
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| Reb Yankle
By Shmuel Marcus
I suppose every twenty-year-old should have an eighty-eight-year-old friend | |
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| The Vodofskys
By Shmuel Marcus
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| The Survivor
By Shmuel Marcus
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| Shimon the Levi
By Gutman Locks
"You see all these men?" The Chief asked. "They are all lost!" Shimon's face dropped. The Chief continued: "They don't know what tribe they come from!" | |
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| A Short Story about a Long Life
By Gutman Locks
He was standing by the side of the road speaking through the open window of my car. "From this moment on," I said to him, "every good deed I do will also be credited to your account..." | |
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| Her Own Child
By Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal
After years of trying and seeking help from specialists, Anya and Sol confronted the reality of their situation. "Would you want to adopt?" Anya asked one day in a tentative voice | |
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| The Shabbat that Kept Rose
By Goldy Rosenberg
Rose felt like a leaf caught between heavy gusts of wind with no anchoring force to answer her question: To keep her job, or keep the Shabbat? | |
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| Coma
By Judy Doobov
Her EEG was totally flat, indicating zero brain activity. A pacemaker made her heart beat artificially and a respirator made her lungs breathe artificially... | |
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| A Pittsburgh Miracle
By Miriam Sokal
The warmth and the songs uplifted Marilyn in a way she hadn't expected -- creating a sense of openness inside her to whatever destiny had to offer | |
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| The Shofar and the Wall
Rabbi Moshe Segal
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| Post-Op Popsicle
By Lieba Rudolph
At first, we weren't concerned, knowing how children love to report
even the slightest mishap. But when my husband and Rabbi Rosenfeld saw her sock
bright red with blood, it was clear that she had to get to a hospital | |
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| Seriously
By Yosef Marcus
Simple words. Anyone could have said it. But the Rebbe believed it. And because he believed it, I believed it | |
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| Find a Jew and Give him Matzah
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| The Seventh Year
It was in 1950, after we had completed our army service. At first we lived in
tents, in the middle of a barren wilderness. At that time, there were not yet
water pipes reaching our moshav. We had to content ourselves with what could be
grown in dry rugged fields. | |
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| Rotzviniki
By Chaim Drizin
"Thank you for not revealing that I'm not Jewish," Kola's robust voice called out from the front of the car. I was stunned. It hadn't crossed my mind to introduce my driver one way or another | |
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| The Holy Beggars Of Safed
By Chana Besser
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| A Rehearsal for Redemption
By Meir Michel Abehsera
Fallacious arguments flew away like frightened bats as we toned the walls of our hearts to prepare for an all-out war -- fairly fought, wind against wind | |
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| "Killing Me Softly With His Song"
By Tuvia Natkin
Once he had been a brilliant Lower East Side yeshiva prodigy. The Depression
had changed that. The Party valued him. After Stalin he rethought his life and
was a watchmaker. One afternoon he asked me -- a Jewish illiterate -- if I wanted to hear a niggun | |
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| Sweet
By Tzvi Freeman
Once, I had a divine revelation. It was on the holy day of Rosh Hashanah, but I wasn't in shul. I was in a sterile and depressing geriatrics rehab ward, where a few old bubbies had gathered to hear the sounding of the shofar | |
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| Holy Day
By Chana Heilbrun
Slowly the shelter came to life. My mother got up and prepared breakfast--a few crackers with some jam we still had left, but neither my two sisters nor my mother touched the food... | |
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| Bernie
By Tzvi Freeman
I learned the best strategy to deal with Ernie: avoid eye contact. Any recognition of his presence was due to invite another frenzied round of lectures, yelling, sobbing, hand-waving, stomping and door-slamming... | |
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| Kosher For Passover
By Chaim Drizin
Forty years in the African veldt... still he remembered | |
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| A Matter of Life and Death
Rabbi Marcus Lehman
I was in a great hurry that morning. I was heading a delegation slated to meet with the German Minister of Education, and had only 30 minutes to get to the station... | |
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| Business
By Bella Schapiro
When Yossele the Ganif timorously opened the door, there was a collective astonishment. What had brought the notorious town thief to the Rabbi's house on the night after Yom Kippur? | |
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| Fringes of Fright
As heard from Betzalel Schif
I'm not talking about a small fine or even some lashes. This could mean that my father, and maybe even me, would sit in a dark and dingy jail cell. A wave of heat overcame my body. | |
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| Zaidy Pinchas' Torah
By Chana Weisberg
Zaidy embraced the Torah for the last time and gently laid it, in its wooden case, under a tree. He lifted his young child in his arms and journeyed on through the forest | |
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| Shabbat in Lvov
By Chana Weisberg
"The group is leaving on the train tonight." He spoke in a whisper, although they were alone in the privacy of their home. Spies and informers could be hidden in any corner, and it was said that the walls themselves had ears... | |
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| Hospitality, 1939
By Chana Weisberg
The Jewish refugees slept in the train stations, exposed to the elements, awaiting deportation to Siberia. It was strictly forbidden for any Russian citizen to communicate with these "foreign spies" | |
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| Purim Saddam
By Tzvi Jacobs
400 apartments housing 1,200 people were destroyed or damaged. Tel Aviv hospitals were
prepared to handle mass casualties | |
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| Rabbi Routs Robbers
By Tuvia Bolton
There was Mr. Schwartz in the newspaper! It was a small picture of him standing with two large policemen, one scratching his head in wonder looking at the bullet holes in the ceiling of the grocery | |
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| The Rebbe Who Saved a Village
"Yediot Achronot," May 5, 1957
On that black and bitter night, a band of fedayeen entered the village. They made their way to the synagogue of the local agricultural school and raked the room with fire from their Karl-Gustav rifles | |
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