Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 6 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“How are you, Hinda?” Chana, standing beside her in the narrow aisle of the bus traveling to the Denia neighborhood, had a sorrowful tone when she spoke to her. Hinda didn’t know if she spoke this way to everyone she met, or only when she spoke to her. “I haven’t seen you since I heard you got married. I was so happy to hear. Baruch Hashem, baruch Hashem…”

“Thank you.” Hinda smiled pleasantly, but didn’t take the seat near the window. If Chana would stand here for two more seconds, it would be expected of her, and she’d have to do it, but there was a chance that Chana would advance further into the bus and wouldn’t sit down next to her, and Hinda preferred it that way. When she had to get to the Shmueli, Oren, Tawil, and Danziger families, she liked to use the time she had on the way to daven that her mission should go well. Sometimes it went well with these people; other times, less so.

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 5 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“Immmaaaaaa! The tzedakah lady is here!”

Hinda leaned against the wall in the stairwell and waited. The little Ben-Baruch boy was raised well; he came back after twenty seconds with a ten-shekel coin in his hand. Hinda wrote a receipt, tore it off the pad, and handed it to him. “Thank you, and tizku l’mitzvos. Give this to Ima.”

At the door across the hall, she hesitated before knocking, but then decided to go ahead with it. A light knock, and then another one. As usual, they didn’t open for her. She went up another floor, skipping the door of the Russians and knocking at the Lanzitzkys.

“Ah…Mrs…Hinda!” Chaya Lanzitzky blushed and smiled. They’d always called their neighbor in shul “Mrs. Schorr.” That was what her chair in the ladies’ section said, too. What was her name now that she’d remarried? It was a good thing she remembered her first name. “Welcome! How are you? We haven’t seen you in a long time!”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 4 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Anyone passing him on Emek Refa’im Street would be sure that he was an old man who had emerged at dawn to seek the rising sun: legs thrust forward, a short, dusty jacket, and a peaked cap pulled low over his face. That was what Benny thought when he passed the bench and glanced quickly at the figure sprawled on it. He didn’t give the matter more than three seconds of thought—something along the lines of “these strange kinds of people”—before continuing on to his pizza store and café.

The noise of the metal shutters being rolled up startled the figure out of his place.

“Oh!” he said, in a very normal-sounding voice. “I was waiting for you.”

“You…were waiting for me? Oh, it’s you! The British student from around here—remind me what your name is?”

“Canadian, not British,” the youth replied in his heavy accent. “And my name is Martin. When will the first pizza be ready?”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 3 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

The apartment where Chani lived was tiny. Hinda leaned on the kitchen counter and peered into the cradle standing right next to it. One-year-old Bracha’s hands protruded from between the bars as she stretched in her sleep, as if she was trying to grab onto them. Hinda smiled.

“I think she can manage here for another two months,” Chani said cheerfully. “Then we’ll move into our new apartment, and we’ll buy her a normal-sized crib. Come, Ima, sit down. You didn’t taste my cheesecake.”

The area next to the table was even smaller than the space allocated for the cradle, and exactly three chairs stood there. Hinda moved one chair back and wondered what they would do when Dov arrived.

Eli, Chani’s husband, offered to make her a coffee. Hinda thanked him but said perhaps it would be better to wait for Dov to come back from davening. Meanwhile, Chani told her about the substituting job she was about to start, and Eli talked about the leak in the bathroom that just was not stopping, and how they already felt uncomfortable calling the landlord to complain. Bracha woke up and gurgled playfully, and Hinda gave her a hug, amazed at how much she’d changed in the six weeks they hadn’t seen each other. Chani brought a plate of wafers to the table.

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 2 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Dov let her know that he was downstairs. Hinda, who had been ready for ten minutes already, locked the door and went down, her mind on Uncle Michoel, whose phone number she had just tried again—still with no results.

Dov had suggested at the beginning of the week that they should try to invite Michoel for Shabbos. “You have one uncle,” he’d said. “True, he didn’t come to our wedding, but you said you weren’t too surprised about that. I think that even if there’s a bit of anger there, it’s worthwhile to forgive and to continue maintaining ties. Because, after all, at our age especially, an uncle is a treasure.”

“Alright,” she’d replied. “And the truth is that I’m really not angry at him. You know, it could be that he’s even abroad. He left me a mazel tov message on my voicemail on the day of the wedding itself. So already then I realized that he might not come.”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 1 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Dov shrugged out of his faded suit jacket and placed a pile of mail on the table. “Hi,” he said warmly. “How was your day, Hinda?”

“Baruch Hashem, yom yom,” Hinda replied, giving the same response she had given for the last seven weeks.

“Your uncle sent a fat envelope, almost a package. I wonder how it came in the regular mail.”

“Oh, yes. He always sends envelopes that size, and it always comes in the regular mail.”

“The postmark is from more than two weeks ago, though.”

“He must have sent it quite some time ago, then. I was actually surprised that he had forgotten all this time; I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with some people.” She carefully glanced at the air conditioner she had switched on a few minutes before, ahead of his arrival. Her Baruch had made an amateur repair two and a half months ago, and if the electricity would short, a technician would no doubt disapprove of the unprofessional intervention.

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Israel Book Shop presents The Prologue of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Behind the white curtain that had begun to yellow was the sea—blue, expansive, stretching behind Katzburg’s house, where the view ended. Hinda took a deep breath as she glanced at the blueness of it, and then went back to the couch, where the purple suitcase sat, open. Yosef was sitting next to it.

“When did you come into the house, so quietly?” she asked. The response was a tired look.

“Alright,” she said, turning to the suitcase. “What else do I need to take?”

“Umm….” Yosef replied. “I don’t know. But Mommy?”

“Yes, dear?”

“When are you coming back?”

“We’ll talk about it,” Hinda said. She didn’t say, “We talked about it already.” She scanned the piles of folded clothes. A new tichel, a new robe, a small tube of face cream. Rebbetzin Wagner said she had to buy herself a few new things.

“I didn’t buy you a present yet,” Yosef said. He scratched his forehead. “What do you want me to give you?”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 69 of a new online serial novel, The Black Sheep, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“Are you going to Bnei Brak today?” Shulamis asked, staring piercingly at Ariella.

“Yes.” Ariella smiled at her as she stuck a bottle of water into her tote bag that had accompanied her on so many trips these past few months.

“Are you also taking your suitcase?” four-year-old Daniel demanded to know.

“Oh, no. It’s staying here.”

“For now,” Shulamis said in a significant tone. Ariella looked at her questioningly. “I heard Ima talking on the phone on Motza’ei Shabbos with Aunt Sarah about a shidduch for you that doesn’t seem to be working out, and she said you’re not so disappointed.”

“You have the ears of a fox!” Gadi berated his sister.

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 68 of a new online serial novel, The Black Sheep, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

“How is the Rav recovering?” Yigal Erenbaum asked politely. “I understand this was quite a harrowing experience…”

“The Rav? I don’t know; you need to ask him…” The lot stretched out before him, bathed in sunlight, and full of trash, just like he remembered it. Elazar Reiness walked along the edge, no longer afraid to be seen, or to be identified. His battle had come to an end, in failure, but he was biting his lips and moving onward. There would be a hearing in court, but he wasn’t pinning much hope on it.

Still, every so often, his legs carried him here.

“So…how do you feel?” Mr. Erenbaum reworded his question.

“Baruch Hashem. The first few days were rough, but as time goes on, I’m recovering.”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 67 of a new online serial novel, The Black Sheep, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week.  Click here for previous chapters.

Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications. 

Deep pain, with a sour taste. Plain joy. Intense fury.

Was it possible to be feeling all three of these emotions together, rising like a trio of grapes on one vine?

“Rebbi, let us drink l’chaim that you were saved.”

A very late Maariv had just ended. A few bachurim brought out a bottle of liquor, opened a table, and ordered pizza. Rabbi Reiness smiled, wondering if it reached his eyes. “Sure,” he said, “but I only drink grape juice.”

Borei pri hagafen. L’chaim. How sweet and juicy is the grape as its flavor spills out, much like the gratitude he felt spilling out in his heart for being home safely. There were a few moments during the past day when he hadn’t been sure that the story would end quite like this…

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