18

Odessa is a nasty place. Everybody knows that. Instead of saying "a big difference" Odessans say "two big differences"...

37m read Translated from Russian by Boris Dralyuk

I lodge the canoe's stern on the bank, lay down the slippery oar, and roll up the mat that covered my lap while I rowed.

33m read Translated from Hebrew by Jessica Cohen

"Putting on a few pounds there, kid," Uncle Saul said, looking me up and down. "A few too many latkes, I see."

23m read

One morning, the bus leaves the main road and turns into the roundabout. The entrance to the Villa.

19m read Translated from Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger

Three things worried Paul Gilverstein as he stepped off his school bus that blustery March afternoon in 1958.

31m read

The braying woke her. The same loud, rasping noise had greeted her every morning since her arrival in Tel Aviv...

16m read

Molly wakes to the sound of a siren careening into her bedroom. Morning light dripping into her room, sheets tangled around her legs, a sheen of sweat on her lip.

17m read

Sylvia donned her tortoiseshell reading glasses and placed the envelope on the kitchen table covered by a white cloth...

24m read

Years ago, I spent a Yom Kippur in Buenos Aires unlike any other. One moment of it in particular still haunts me.

9m read

Barton Zuckerman was a fat kid. He was always red-faced and winded, looking like he'd just lost a fight.

15m read

The playing field of Paulie's day camp was little more than an open sandlot behind the rundown yellow brick building housing the Yeshiva Rav Shimon bar Yochai.

13m read

We're sitting at the breakfast table, but I feel as if I'm not really here. I have to concentrate on everything I do, to focus all my attention on every movement.

36m read Translated from Hebrew by Shira Atik

Marc was baffled by the weather. He endured the single digit cold, tensing his legs to balance in the wind gusts.

16m read

Even now, on the train, Daphne couldn’t stop thinking about the woman in the painting — her aureole of crimped, light-brown hair, the expanse of pale ochre forehead...

28m read

Inside each of us is the one saying no no and the one saying yes yes and the one asking maybe. Maybe now? Maybe this? Maybe him?

24m read

Our base was situated in the northern Judean Desert on the outskirts of Jericho, equidistant from the refugee towns and the Jericho city center...

35m read

Was a time when one of our kind would have strangled the wife, right off, if necessary, although the best didn't need to. This is deep folk logic we're talking here.

31m read

Along the northeastern wall of the Cementerio Israelita, in the town of La Tablada, province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, are several rows of neat, evenly spaced, gravestones.

15m read

A knock at the door. Vikke, not expecting anyone, immediately cast her eyes about to assure herself that Zelig and Henia were there and safe.

47m read

The summer before I turned ten, my mother taught me to drive. "You can't tell anyone," she said. "Not any of your friends, not your teacher, not anyone...

23m read

Although they lived in the same city and saw one another quite often, the need to correspond was so urgent that he sent his daughter letters at least twice a week.

17m read

So, at a soccer field in Western Pennsylvania, I bump into this guy I used to know. It is a fear of mine, meeting anyone today from those years.

19m read

Who'd have thought I'd ever find myself at the center of a mess? I wasn't tough, God knows.

30m read

"Can you come for a visit this evening? Come over. We'll talk and you'll meet my friends."

15m read Translated from Yiddish by Frieda Johles Forman and Sylvia Segal Lustgarten

The screeching canaries, the yelping Pekinese, the squawking parrots, and the whining cats vied for Elsa's attention.

16m read

The storm had lost some of its power. The rain, pouring down in unusual amounts since Thursday, had calmed down...

12m read Translated from Hebrew by Tom Atkins

"I like Rabbi Herman Fink." This is what Eve Lind, forty-seven-year-old pianist, thought to herself as she watched the rabbi on the hot, humid morning...

30m read

Tamara poised her pen over a blank piece of paper. She pulsated with a mixture of excitement and anxiety...

15m read

The older doctor endeavors to nap each afternoon on the third floor of the nursing home.

13m read

"Rain!" Beni''s shout roused the children like a siren. Within seconds, as if they had practiced this scenario daily, the children abandoned whatever they were doing...

12m read

The white van was aching to fall apart as it sped down the highway from the Shomron towards the border with the undisputed portion of Israel.

22m read

"What you want and what you get are two different stories." Grandma's motto. That's what went through my mind when a call from Abba stopped me...

31m read Translated from Hebrew by Shira Atik

In his little Brooklyn synagogue, the retired dentist Howard Sherman had become a complainer: the chairs are uncomfortable, it takes forever to get a minyan, the cholent is tasteless...

18m read