Stories

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

Like any small town, Safed has a few professional beggars. None of them are drunkards, thank G-d, or homeless, G-d forbid. They just beg for a living. It's their job, and they work hard at it. They keep regular hours, and each has his own territory.

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 . . .