Issue 23

The cicadas are everywhere; in the grass, between the houses, along the pathways and under the garbage cans, but mostly in the trees.   (more...)

On a narrow meandering path that makes its way through the fields, sometimes disappearing among the trees...   (more...)

As he strolled, daydreaming, across the square in the market town of Zyldzce, Menke chanced to brush against the tunic of the Obersturmführer von Graf   (more...)

Daylight savings time ended, and it got dark early. I don’t like the dark, but at least it’s easy to disappear in it.   (more...)

Though it was the end of summer, the heat still waited outside front doors along with the morning newspaper, both boding ill.   (more...)

Instead of sprinkling the shiny “mazel tov!” shaped confetti across the white tablecloth, Dovie dumped them out of the package, into a heap on the table...   (more...)

“The new year starts when the sun sets,” his grandfather says. “And the sun doesn’t wait for Jack Luckman.”   (more...)

Hershel Lévi left Warsaw for Paris in the summer of 1935, taking with him only his miniature theatre...   (more...)

All summer everyone talked about how Israeli agents had captured Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aries.   (more...)

This is Rose’s lonely time. Papa Joshel out at his pinochle game, the children asleep in bed, Irving working late at the candy store.   (more...)

When I gazed up at my teacher’s kind face from my desk in the front row, his bald head always reminded me of a leftover party balloon floating toward the ceiling.   (more...)

Dear reader, it’s not her goodness, her piety, her benevolence that I want to tell you about. Her name was Deborah, and in Bodovitz you only needed to say, “According to Deborah,”   (more...)

Isaac heard laughter and then his name. His granddaughter Ellen and her husband Steve were entertaining friends in the living room of their high-rise apartment.   (more...)

One secretary worked for both congregations, and on her desk sat two phones. She answered one, “Shalom, Temple Emuna,” and the other, “Hello, St. Anne’s Episcopal Church.”   (more...)

“She’s running late,” I say, leaning against the window frame, watching the sun go down.   (more...)

Hadas Benayoun grinds spices. Every morning, the palms of her hands are a new color – bloody paprika, or the marigold splendor of turmeric...   (more...)

Now, so long after that cold dark February afternoon, I feel the trembling of her hands in my own as I take an envelope, emblazoned with a foreign postage stamp   (more...)

She gets out of the airport taxi. As the air conditioned air dissipates, heat hits her like a wave. Israel in July. “Thank you,” she says in schoolgirl Hebrew.   (more...)