Showing Results 21 - 30 of 31
Berlin, 18 July 1777 Berlin, 13 Tammuz 5537
Dear Moses, may you live,
I hope that my letter will find you happy and in good spirits in Königsberg. We are all, thank G-d, well and alive, and when you…
Citizen Voli Brener
A Moscow snowy morning, sun-streaked and dry. When it falls on a Sunday, the morning shines with a thousand Moscow sparkles—rejuvenating white lights that charm and shimmer, as if…
On the twelfth of the month of Elul in the year five thousand four hundred and eighty-nine, Menaḥem the scribe and teacher of young children in the community of Dessau, became the father of Moses,…
I went to see to my sister in Berlin.
She wants me to consider moving in.
Her husband’s passed away now, a schlemiel,
He left her too much money in his will.
Her residence is filled with precious…
I was the fourth [child] born and the first son, a tender darling to my father and my mother (cf. Prov. 4:3) after my mother had given birth to three daughters. My parents were worriers and trembled…
The Israelites spent the rest of the day celebrating this festival of thanksgiving in their homes as a second Purim, with tears of sadness and joy, and by the time the sun set, the…
Because observant Jews do not light fires or cook on the Sabbath, they prepare hot meals before the beginning of the Sabbath. In some communities, families brought their Sabbath stew (known as cholent…
I’ve been told that years ago a rich man lived in Mainz as a leader of the Jewish community. He had a beautiful wife, who, however, died, leaving him their son. A short time…
Something is wrong between me and the story I want to write. Whatever subject I touch on, after five or four, sometimes even two pages, either the story throws me out or I throw myself out. As if I…
We couldn’t be Jews, my brother finally explained, raising his voice, because our grandmother had not been Jewish, and for Jews only your mother counts. We weren’t even half-Jewish, because our father…