Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 13 of a new online serial novel, Nine A.M., by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

To Naomi Schvirtz.

Due to complaints about a violation of the status quo with regard to the education of the children in the kindergarten, you are invited to the camp committee office tomorrow at ten in the morning to discuss the division of jobs in the preschool.

Respectfully,

Leo Sherer, Work Manager

“Binyamin will come with you,” Rechel said as she studied the official paper with the Samson Lager logo on it. “You won’t go alone.”

“Okay.” There was a small crease between Naomi’s eyes. “But I’m not sure that I understand what it says here. Who complained about a violation in the status quo? Me, regarding the future assistant, or Mila? Maybe she tattled to them that I announced that, ‘Anyone who wants to bentch should come’?”

“What do you mean? What did Bilhah do?”

“She would say, ‘Rabbi Schwartzbrod’s group, come and bentch.’”

“And do the children from the other group come to bentch when you invite them all?”

“Quite a few of them do.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 12 of a new online serial novel, Nine A.M., by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

On the bulletin board at the entrance to the shop:

Assistant required in the preschool for at least five hours a day.

Those interested should submit their candidacy to the Samson Lager office by the end of works hours this coming Wednesday.

“Elky, pack me up six hundred grams of white sugar, please.” Anika didn’t even try to conceal her unusual purchases, made possible because she was the oldest of the three Sherer daughters. She leaned on the counter and studied the shiny green bag from which Elky scooped out the little mounds of white crystals, pouring them into the paper bag on the electric scale. “And I also want a container of the cheese that we produce, and a tin can of pickles. You’ve been left alone to spend your daily hour here, huh? But you’re managing just fine, I see.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 11 of a new online serial novel, Nine A.M., by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Yaakov began and said, “Ribbono Shel Olam, did I not withstand twenty years in Lavan’s home? And when I left his home, the wicked Eisav tried to kill my children, and I was ready to die for them after I raised them like chicks of a hen, and I suffered the pain of raising children over them. And now, will You not remember this for me, and have mercy on my children?”

There was silence in the back room of the hut that housed the shul, as Babbe Sara Liba raised her eyes from the page in front of her. “We all try to advocate good for Am Yisrael in their difficult time,” she said, her low voice echoing off the walls. “A time of galus, of churban, when we don’t know who will survive and how. So Avraham Avinu came to defend Klal Yisrael, and he mentioned the merit of Akeidas Yitzchak. Then Yitzchak came, and he also mentioned the merit of the Akeidah. And which merit did Yaakov bring with him, that was equal to the Akeidah? His mesirus nefesh for his children, and the fact that he agreed to give up his life for his young ‘chicks.’ The pain of raising the twelve Shivtei Kah…” She fell silent for a moment and looked around. The women and girls of the community all sat listening attentively. Naomi was also sitting in the audience, listening closely to her grandmother.