Category Archives: Stories

An article about both my forthcoming book and its publisher just appeared in the Edmonton Jewish News. http://www.edmontonjewishnews.com/3403-2/

This is a story that’s embedded in my forthcoming novel, The Daughter Who Got Away.  The novel will be published in March 2016 and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.  Please forward this link to someone you know! Miracle at Konotop … Continue reading →

Menachem Goodman was descended from a long line of rabbis whose dearest goal was a personal and spiritual perfection they knew they would never reach.  From the day of Menachem’s birth, his family planned that he too would become a … Continue reading →

Debby was not a “soft” person, but she was not bitter, either.  Her mother had died in 1912 when Debby was a baby, and her fairy-tale stepmother, whom she and her brother referred to as “Horse-face,” beat her and forced … Continue reading →

Yedidja and his siblings grew up in Jerusalem in the 1920’s and 30’s, speaking Ladino at home, Arabic in the market, English at school, and Hebrew in the synagogue.  Closest to their hearts was Ladino, the language of the Jews … Continue reading →

In the late 1920’s Flora got her first teaching job at a Sunday Hebrew school for Jewish children in New York.  Since the children were poor the education was almost free, though each child had to pay a nickel per … Continue reading →

Flora’s friend Yedidja grew up as an eighth-generation Jerusalemite in a Sephardic family that spoke Ladino at home.  His family had frequent get-togethers which lasted long into the night, and the children were allowed to stay up as late as … Continue reading →

Back in the 1920’s, Joseph and Charlotte Baum and their friends loved practical jokes.  Once, as a new bride, Charlotte was sent a picture postcard, forwarded from a friend of theirs who had supposedly received it from Charlotte’s new husband … Continue reading →

Flora was always superstitious about interfering in anyone’s love life because she knew what had happened to her grandmother.  Back in czarist Russia, this grandmother was engaged to marry her beloved.  However, he had tuberculosis, so her parents forced her … Continue reading →

In many Jewish homes of that era, there were no pets.  Animals in the home were just not the done thing in America, though ancestors in Eastern Europe had kept cows, chickens, and goats—for food, not for pleasure.  In New … Continue reading →