adminIn 1995 I visited my cousin Vera in a London hospital, which struck me as a pleasant and welcoming place, despite it being a hospital, […]
Karen Paley – ‘Reverse Assimilation’
Several children at the John D. Runkle Elementary School in Brookline, Massachusetts in the 1950s used to make fun of our classmate Claire. Her eyes […]
Annie Charlat – ‘Before the Banquet’
Vashti knew the navy couch. People call her difficult; they don’t know she waited all her life to say no. A dance with destiny […]
Jacqueline Jules – ‘Forty-Four Perfect Candles’
This small blue box, four inches tall, holds forty-four candles. Exactly enough for eight nights provided one or more are not broken, misshapen, […]
Lisa Grunberger – An Excerpt from ‘The Happy Adoptee’
1. Orphan Long Island, 1998 During the summer of 1998, two major things happened that shaped my decision to find grandparents for Rachel: during that summer […]
Rachel Howe – ‘My JAP Journey’
Don’t be a JAP. That was the clear message I had been given my entire childhood. It seemed like the most important thing NOT to […]
Mark Russ – ‘The Ghost of Kyiv’
Pavel shot up from his knees, barely having time to make the sign of the cross, when he heard the cruise missile strike his […]
Emil Draitser – ‘Arrow Piercing Throat’
“I don’t understand why, why they meekly went to their deaths!” These words surfaced in my memory for the first time recently, five years […]
Danielle Fisher – “Tragedy”
Tragedy And the thing they don’t tell you about a national tragedy is that the personal tragedies don’t cease her son’s untimely passing, […]
Catherine Gonick – ‘The News I Prayed Not to Hear’
On this Tisha B’Av, I thought of my wife-in-law in Israel. My husband and his ex are both Americans, working together online to secure […]
Talya Jankovits – Two Poems
Lemon Trees Don’t Grow in Poland lemon trees don’t grow in Poland – she tells me,but they do grow outside her den window. Great bursts […]
Lois Villemaire – Two Poems
My Great Grandmother Fannie Living with an aunt, her parents dead, she departs from a dot on the map, the village of Horby […]
[Review] – A Visit to Moscow
A Visit to Moscow – adapted by Anna Olswanger from a story by Rabbi Rafael Grossman, illustrated by Yevgenia Nayberg (Reviewed by Monette […]
Basia Winograd – ‘Letter from a Zionist’
May 24, 1966, Tel Aviv My Dearest Feliks, Your silence after our last letter has not gone unremarked. Hanka and I not offended, […]
Laurel Benjamin – Three Poems
In the Middle 1. Ghosts dreamed in the space between my parents. I read the reflection in their longing (though I didn’t […]
Freddie Levin – ‘Still Waters’
Enid sits in the center of the first row, a handkerchief folded gently in her hands. The dark polished wood of the coffin on […]
[Review] Places We Leave Behind – Jennifer Lang
Places We Leave Behind – Jennifer Lang (reviewed by Monette Moradi) With a memoir that borders on modern poetry in certain chapters, Jennifer Lang delivers […]
Mildred Faintly – ‘Brest-Litovsk’: A Translation from the Yiddish of Anna Margolin (Lider, 1917)
Brest-Litovsk 1. The old city, the little gray city astride the Mukhovets river, astride the borders of Russia and Poland both, its nationality […]
Anne Myles – Three Poems
Tribe I’m driving towards Santa Fe with my old friend. Around us a landscape as alien as the moon. Sandy ground with tumbleweed […]
Catherine Gonick – Two Poems
Newcomers The only Jews in town, my father’s family was respected. The churchgoers in Red Oak, Iowa considered them People of the Book […]