Showing Results 1 - 8 of 8
Sixty years ago, Jacob, who was known in his quarter as Old Jacob, was living in the rue de la Mortellerie. He ran a successful business selling old clothes, scrap metal and even, on occasion, old…
After an absence of many years, I returned to Alsace in November 1856, in response to the invitation of an old friend. During this first and short visit, I was greatly moved in recovering all the…
How long did I wander in Caesarea,
That enchanting place where my heart had adored you.
—Racine, Bérénice, I, 4.
I was only a child of the peace, born into a strange postwar. How could I have…
Every day at siesta time, when under the scorching heat of the sun the little town of Kenadza was breathing its last, Madame Karsenty would settle down on the sofa in the living room where her son…
My father and mother were left alone and sat down for a moment; then my father said: “Well, shall we go up to bed?”
“As you wish, dear, though I don’t feel in the least like sleeping. I don’t know why…
Laws are always tainted by the passions and the prejudices of the legislator.
—Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws
In 1807, Mordecai Blum, his wife Rebecca, and his son David were living in a…
[ . . . ] The sofer’s work is poorly compensated. There is an old proverb about how the soferim never grow wealthy in the land of Israel. I don’t know who gave birth to that pearl detached from the…
This is a story that begins with J. It was the fifteenth of July 1930.
It’s about J; it’s about a consonant still a little vowelish, a little i-ish in the aftermath of a magic philology.
Were I not…