Contemporary Stories

"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..."

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?"

"It's just not the same anymore without him..." She bows her head. I nod in agreement, but inside I'm singing

I glanced at my watch nervously. Usually, I avoid flying Friday afternoons for fear I won't arrive in time, but this time, I figured I'd be safe. I figured wrong...

The doctor picked up the sample. He placed a drop on a slide, then slipped it under the eyepiece of the microscope. One glance showed him that it was full of bacteria--he did not bother to analyze it further

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.

Do you know where Kano is? Look it up on the map of Nigeria in West Africa

"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."

The soldier stared at the boy, fighting back tears. "Over these four terrible years, this is the first live Jewish child I have seen..."

"Go find someone else to bother," he shot back at me. "I want nothing to do with you!" My head was spinning; I was hurt inside, yet knew I had done nothing disrespectful. Obviously, what I represent—being a religious Jew, wearing a beard and a kippah on my head— upset him so.

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

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...

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

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?"

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...

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.

His one hand held a wooden cane, the other somehow was suddenly on my shoulder. "Can you davven?" he whispered

I suppose every twenty-year-old should have an eighty-eight-year-old friend

"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!"

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

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..."

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

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?

Her EEG was totally flat, indicating zero brain activity. A pacemaker made her heart beat artificially and a respirator made her lungs breathe artificially...

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

Could we possibly forgo the sounding of the shofar, which symbolizes the redemption of Israel? For me, it was unthinkable...

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

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.

"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

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

It was obvious that G‑d was there in the room. Because she was talking to him

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...

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...

The rabbi stared at the grave, noticing the most unusual headstone. Engraved on the stone, above the man's name, were the Hebrew words kasher l'pesach "Kosher for Passover."

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.

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

Betsheva's father had taken all possible precautions to hide the illegal factory, covering its entrance with large planks of wood. But the approaching footsteps sounded like they knew where they were headed...

"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...

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"

400 apartments housing 1,200 people were destroyed or damaged. Tel Aviv hospitals were prepared to handle mass casualties

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

Editor's note: In light of the recent tragedy which struck the Chabad-Lubavitch community, we find the following account, penned more than fifty years ago, particularly poignant--and most relevant

Crystallizing slowly over time in the old man's soul was the singular obligation of telling the story of that child's last moments

He imparted a lesson not through speaking, but by listening to a story, a story he knew firsthand...

When the Russian Army approached Auschwitz in the beginning of 1945, the Nazis evacuated the death camp. More than 15,000 are estimated to have died on this march...

My children specifically enjoy hearing my most vivid image of a late March Canadian blizzard, the night of my Bat Mitzva…

Before the wedding reception, the groom approached me and sadly explained that I should not expect any form of co-operation from his father during the ceremony.

Dan told me that in recent days, as images of the 9-11 attacks appeared on television again and again with the approach of the anniversary, Sasha had become even more depressed, to the point that he was suicidal.

I could not walk anymore. The frosty Polish winter, the terrible cold, the exhausting six-week death march, were too much to bear. I felt that I simply could not place one foot in front of the other. All I wanted was to sit down and give up.

Another violent blow landed on my other cheek. "You are still praying?" The Blockelteste asked. Her face was crimson, contorted from fury, her eyes bloodshot. A sudden Jewish pride arose within me like a pillar of smoke rising from a chimney...

In the gas chambers, one boy shouted: "Brothers! Today is the holiday of Simchat Torah. We do not have clothes to cover us, nor a Torah scroll with which to dance. So let us dance with G‑d Himself—who is surely here among us."

Standing stoically in her usual regal manner she continued: "My dear children, when the Gestapo come and get us, I do not know what will be. One thing I ask of you. Please take care of each other."

"On one very cold night I was shivering so hard, and I felt that I was freezing to death. All of a sudden I felt a little bit of warmth..."

"When I was about three years old, the war broke out. I was too young to know why things were so hard, but old enough to know that every egg and every piece of fruit was a real treasure."

Her English could only be described as broken at best. But her pride was evident in her erect carriage and the glow in her eyes as she relayed her story

"You! Put the nooses around the necks of these Jews!" The Nazi commander barked sharply. Dovid stepped out from the masses of frightened Jews and said, "I cannot do this." Infuriated, the commander's wrath now spilled down upon David,"Shoot him!"

Katya Umansky was alone in her Moscow apartment when the phone rang. "All right, Umansky," said the caller. "Let's put the games aside. I'm a representative of the KGB. I need to talk to you."

"Very well," sneered the commandant. "Don't sign. You will be in this prison for eight more years. And we'll see how your G‑d will help you…"

It was the perfect apartment and the purchase was almost completed when the shekel dropped steeply against the dollar. Aleksander Guravich was suddenly obliged to come up with an additional forty thousand NIS. He didn't know where to turn.

"This," they declared, in contrast to what most people thought was how a home should be furnished, "was interior decorating."

"That day the pitcher lost the game. But he won the World Series, and on his table were the tefillin," concluded the Rebbe. "In the end, he will give to them merit by putting them on"

Some called him Reverend Abrahamson. Others called him Cantor. My father called him Chazzan and bristled at the other names...

Katia's voice became choked with emotion as she continued, "I became very angry at Jews and at Judaism. I decided that it was not for me. 'If Jews behave like this,' I thought to myself, 'it's better for me to be among non-Jews.' "

"Chazan, why are you here?" asked an officer whom he encountered. "Are you not supposed to be eating now?"

The Rebbe's encounter with a group of disabled Israeli war heroes

The young woman left the room, but the Rebbe immediately told me to call her back in, explaining: "I don't want her to think that we are discussing her behind her back..."

She walked out of the room. Halfway down the hallway she stopped and stood motionless as if confronting an invisible wall

"Tell me, Rabbi," he called out anxiously, "if... if I put on tefillin, will G-d protect me?"

There are 50 states in the US, said the Rebbe, and all but one allowed Jewish inmates to light Chanukah candles. "Would you believe it? It is only here, in New York State, that prisoners cannot light menorahs for Chanukah!"

"Take these and run to Haumshalagplatz. Run! Tell the kapos that your daughter is among the captured. This is an unwritten law among us -- no snatching of policemen's children"

Rabbi Hodakov, the Rebbe's secretary, was on the line. "The Rebbe says to tell the young woman that there is a Jew in Brooklyn who cannot sleep at night because she intends to marry a non-Jew."

The woman seemed oblivious to my words. "A knife," she repeated. "I must have a knife. Now. Before it is too late"

Mrs. Lifschitz had been advised by Jewish leaders that the phoenix is a non-Jewish symbol. How could it be placed in Jerusalem, no less? I was standing near the door to the Rebbe's office that night, when he called for me and asked that I bring him the book of Job from his bookshelf

A Mexican rabbi visiting Teheran; a Jew in Chaitong, Bangladesh.

"I have a friend called Sarah," said the woman on the other end of the line. "She’s pregnant and says she can’t afford another child, so she decided to have an abortion..."

It was rumored that back in Russia, before the Revolution, the Cigarette Beggar had been a wealthy man, with textile factories in Minsk and philanthropic projects all over the world...

I will forever attribute the first step of my restoration to sanity and self-respect to one man who, with unfathomable intuition and faith in humanity, made a selfless, precise therapeutic intervention in my spirit, and demanded neither my soul nor my bank book as recompense...

She lived in Balaclava, and from her youth had felt a strong attraction to Judaism. Whenever she heard stories of the Holocaust, she was deeply touched...

"How was the game?" asked the Rebbe. "By the sixth inning," the young fan confessed, "the Dodgers were losing nine-to-two. So we decided to leave"

In the wee hours of a sleepless night, Eli thought of the Rebbe.

I used to be in the police escort that once a week escorted the Lubavitcher Rebbe to the Montefiore Cemetery, where the Rabbi’s father-in-law and predecessor is interred. One time, I stood by door of his car when he got out, and asked him: “Excuse me, Rabbi, do you only bless Jewish people or non-Jews too?”

Near the park, we were forced to detour via a parallel street. At the next traffic light, the Rebbetzin said to me: "I heard a woman screaming; can you go back and see what that was about?"

In 1951, my father, Rabbi Moshe Greenberg, was 20 years old and a prisoner in a Soviet labor camp in Siberia. That Yom Kippur, he faithfully prayed all the day's prayers. All, that is, except for Kol Nidrei

I was at my father's side in the empty prep room. The room was silent; just the two of us. Suddenly - this could only happen in Israel - someone swung open the door and jabbed his head in. "I'm looking for my friend..."

"What is it?" he snapped. In the Bronx, it's proper etiquette to snap when greeting someone. I noticed the loaf of rye bread sitting on the table, definitely not a traditional Seder food. I said, "The Rebbe sent me."

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..."

His parents had been painfully trying to reach him the entire time he was in Shanghai... For months upon months, they had not been able to make contact with him. Had he made the right decision to depart from them? What ever happened to them? Would he ever see them again?

Even though Basia was occupied with supporting her family, three times a week she would make the long trip to visit her husband.

Prior to the next Shabbat, the commanding officer, Victor, announced that ten percent of the soldiers could go home for Shabbat, a twenty-four hour leave. Unfortunately, the truck that came to take us back to civilization arrived twenty-five minutes before Shabbat began.

They commanded Father to dress and come with them. Father came to my small bed, bent down and gave me a kiss, long and painful. Tears – big ones, hot ones, blazing ones – rolled off his cheek and onto my forehead.

As the crowd dispersed from around the child, the Soviet official suddenly awoke from his drunkenness, pointed, and asked, "Who is that holy man?"

As the hours passed, the students became frustrated and some planned on closing the doors early. They began assessing the cause of the failure.

Just before the siege, Yaakov met his sister, Ita Sosonkin at the outskirts of Leningrad. With tears in their eyes, they promised each other that whoever stays alive will take care of the other's children.

As he was running his hands up the side of the coats, he suddenly realized that his pockets were still filled with wads of money from that day's dealings.

"We were dealt a blow today," my wife said softly. "But I don't want to be angry at G‑d. I want to give praise to G‑d for giving you to me and me to you. As we enter the next chapter of our lives and we will not let bitterness or melancholy darken it."