Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 17 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.

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From an article in Nugot Heyet (“Fortified Place”), the Reform monthly journal:

A Real Failure or Something Else?

There is no doubt that the Orthodox leadership is celebrating a victory in light of the results of the preschool issue. Based on the signatures that were gathered, it emerges that out of fifty-eight students in the preschool, only twenty-six of them signed up for a liberal education. Thirty-two subscribed to the religious track. The dispute between Miss Naomi Schvirtz, who at first took upon herself the job of “everyone’s teacher,” and the assistant, Mila Orenchik, who speaks clearly about resigning because of what is considered to her to be a resounding failure, has now come to an end. But there is no clear information about how the division will be implemented, on a practical level.

What is clear without a doubt is that something about the results requires some thorough clarification. Because although the religious community is numerically larger than the other residents, still, among the names that requested a religious education for their children are some which raise prominent question marks. Is this really what they chose, or is it a clever forgery? It’s hard to believe that someone would try to forge something that can so easily be refuted. But how else can the idea be explained that families that are very connected to the Sherer group have gone and chosen the other option? It seems that there is something here concealed beneath the surface…

“Who wrote this article?” Suzy Elkovitz, Dror’s mother, asked her husband. “Was it my cousin Ernie?”

“Very possible,” her husband, David, replied. “You can see he tried hard not to offend your father: ‘families that are very connected to the Sherer group’… Anyone who doesn’t know will not understand.”

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 16 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 new board in the classroom:

“Bais Yaakov lechu v’nelchah b’or Hashem.”

“It’s so nice!” Katy beamed, while the girls enthusiastically sang the song that Babbe Sara Liba had taught Naomi.

“My grandmother used to live in Lodz, Poland, before the Nazis came to power,” Naomi said in a whisper when the song came to an end. “She taught there at one of the dozens of Bais Yaakov schools established by Sarah Schenirer, and to this day she hasn’t forgotten how wonderful it was. When I was a little girl, she sang this song to me every night, before I went to sleep. When she was a teenager, she participated in Bais Yaakov training for aliyah to Eretz Yisrael. But in the end she couldn’t go, and she stayed in Poland.”

“And that’s how she was saved, actually,” eleven-year-old Renia Stauber pointed out, and Naomi smiled at her. A few of the students stood on the line that Naomi had drawn in white chalk down the middle of the room, to make it easier to see what the older girls were doing at their desks. On the other side of the room, Mila was playing with the younger children, ignoring what was going on in the small classroom. It was the second day that Naomi had dared clearly announce the opening of the “Bais Yaakov” class, and Mila didn’t say anything anymore, even though more than a third of the girls in the class belonged to Leo Sherer’s group.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 15 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.

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The Pri Megadim explains that we are machmir on a problem of a lung, based on the Rashba and those who pasken like him. And there is also an explanation that…the lungs are a problem both in chayos and beheimos…

“What are you busy with now, Binyamin?” A shadow fell over the notebook. It was his cousin, Aryeh, rubbing his hands, which were wet from washing them before davening. “What are these notebooks?”

“They’re my father’s, zichrono l’vrachah. About the subject of treifos and lungs.”

Wide-eyed, Aryeh studied the stack of notebooks, Binyamin, and then the stack again. “Oh, yes. I remember, he used to write a lot.”

For a moment, Binyamin raised his head in a questioning motion; then he went back to the notebook. He finished reading the last page and closed it with a sigh. There was just one left.

“You don’t look like you slept much last night,” Aryeh commented.

Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 14 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. 

We are gratified to invite the members of the community to the engagement celebration of Mordechai, son of Reb Elimelech Kush, and Elka, daughter of Reb Shmelke Cohen, which will take place b’ezras Hashem after work hours, women in the sewing room, and men in the factory hall, second floor.

“That girl who’s engaged—she’s your friend who was here, right?” Katy asked Naomi as she swiped a rag over the floor of the kindergarten room. “She works in the offices, doesn’t she? Hey, why don’t you?”

Naomi looked at a few of the children who had gathered around them, excitedly singing “kallah-kallah-kallah-chasunah!” and replied, “What does that mean? I don’t work in the offices because I really love working with the children in the preschool!”