Showing Results 41 - 50 of 70
[ . . . ] We have nooses fastened around our necks; when the pressure abates for a moment, we utter a cry. Its importance should not be underestimated. Many a time in history did such cries resound…
On the nights before Passover, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur, my mother would send me to the butcher with some birds to be slaughtered according to ritual so the meat would be kosher—that is, clean…
The filthy train lurched along the tracks, jolting my spine through the slats of the wooden seat.
I was thoughtful, my happiness mixed with vague regrets. Happiness? No, a deserter’s sense of hard-won…
The sunset lit up the sky, splashing the drab tenements with gold, bringing memories of Sabbath candles and the smell of gefüllte fish. When I had lived on Hester Street, I would…
Apples. That’s what New Yorkers of the 1930s remember. Apples of the Hesperides, neatly stalled on corner after corner, sold on the last trembling line of decency by men who were unwilling to beg…
There was a mysterious jar on one of the shelves. It contained about twenty gray, hard, colorless, tasteless little rods and did not have a label. This was very strange, because it was a German…
There are contradictions and ambivalences in our celebrating Thanksgiving. We are recent Americans. It wasn’t the Mayflower that brought our people over here. We know too much about what the coming of…
In the spring of 1961, I flunked an exam that would have enabled me to write an honors thesis. In reality, it was a minor failure—I was spending most of my time at the Crimson building, where I was…
The bathroom looked as though some spiteful thug had left his calling card after having robbed the house. As my father was tended to and he was what counted, I would just as soon have nailed the door…
“I have a partner for the Point St Charles business,” said Pa.
“A partner! Why a partner?” said Aunt Julia. “Why are you afraid to do anything by yourself? And who is this partner?”
“Henoch,” he told…