Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 10 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. 

“Ariella! So good to see you! You haven’t been here for two days already!”

“That’s right,” Ariella said tonelessly. “It’s fine—you seem to have managed without me.”

“Should I make you a tea? You’re very hoarse again.”

Her sister looked at her gratefully. “Yes, thanks,” she said quietly, and sank into a chair in the kitchen, exhausted. “I’m thinking about going away.”

“Going away? Where to?” Lakey hung the milchig dishtowel on the hook.

“I don’t know.”

“Will you take me with you?” Lakey asked mischievously. “Sounds like a magical place, this ‘I don’t know.’”

“You have school.”

“And you have work.”

“My students can wait a bit,” Ariella said dismissively.

“That’s not exactly true,” Lakey said. “You teach about six girls a day, five days a week. So out of all of those, there aren’t some who have tests coming up? Accordion is one thing; you can always leave them some instructions about what to practice when you’re not here. But math?”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 9 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. 

Osher

I sat on the floor of the carpentry shop and examined the carvings in the wood. With half an ear, I heard Reb Elazar speaking. He has a regular seder, I see. He starts with the parshah already on Wednesday evening, and he has two additional shiurim on the parshah, on Thursday and on Friday afternoon. Sometimes, he gives it in the carpentry shop; other times it can be in the back kitchen, or even on the beachfront.

He happens to be a very interesting speaker, and despite the ugly hole I had mistakenly made with the machine in the middle of the word ‘V’achalta,’ his words swirled around me and apparently also found an entry point to my head.

“I really enjoyed that midrash about Yaakov Avinu,” I told him afterward. “I wonder if my father knows this midrash. He likes to tell us lots of midrashim at the Shabbos table.”

“Tell him, and you’ll find out if he knows it.”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 8 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. 

The wheels of the accordion cart protested as Ariella wheeled it down the street; they were not enjoying the overuse after a long hiatus. Ariella tugged the cart behind her, deliberating whether to go into the hardware store to buy something to oil them with, or if she should leave the errand for the way home from Zahava’s house.

She glanced at her watch. No, she’d better wait for the way back. Zahava’s little students were waiting. They had made up for ten o’clock a.m., and now it was two minutes past ten…

“Good morning, Ariella.”

“Good morning, Morah,” Ariella said, not looking at her watch anymore, although Morah Mayer’s voice gave her an urge to glance at it again. It was a reminder of those days when the teacher would stand at the gate of the school to greet the latecomers.

“How are you, Ariella?”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 7 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. 

The story of the black sheep was about a prince who had been sent into exile because of his misbehavior—so contrary to the rest of his refined and cultured family members—and thought he had been forgotten there forever. Because he was so unruly, he never bothered to read the letters from his father, the king. Osher’s preschool teacher had told the class the parable in kindergarten, and Osher had returned home fascinated by the story of the prince who was the black sheep of his family.

Reb Elazar and his son, Nechemia, who was home from yeshivah for Shabbos, listened to Osher’s account with interest.

“One boy asked the teacher if the mischievous prince would stand on the benches during circle time and jump onto the floor, ‘like Osher does.’ The kids all laughed, and the teacher told the boy that we don’t talk that way, but it didn’t help. And when my sister Ariella came to pick me up at the end of the day, I told her everything, and she went over to that boy and told him that when she was little, she also jumped off the chairs in her kindergarten class. But the girls didn’t make fun of her, because it’s not a nice thing to do.” Osher didn’t know that he was the first one of the boys to be doing this kind of “session” in the Reinesses’ private kitchen. The Friday night seudah was long over, and only he had gone up to help Reb Elazar and his son organize the refrigerator so that everything could fit back in.

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 6 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. 

“Nosson’s parents called me the other day,” Ariella told her mother, when they both sat down after licht bentching.

“They called?” Her mother started. “What did they want?”

“To invite me for Shabbos.”

Shoshi, seated a short distance away and studying from her Navi, raised her eyes. There was quiet in the large room.

“Nu?” her mother finally said.

“I didn’t want to, of course,” Ariella said lightly. “Last time I was there, last year, his mother tried to suggest a shidduch for me… But that’s not why I declined this time.”

“So what was the reason?”

“I need to rest,” her daughter replied. “I was very tense all week. Thinking about Osher, starting work again…I just wasn’t up to going away for Shabbos.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to rest there?” Shoshi dared to interject. “They probably don’t let you lift a finger when you’re there. Or do you mean that you’d have to bring them a cake or something?”

“If I would have gone, I would have asked you to bake something for me,” her oldest sister said with a smile. “No, it’s not the cake or the kugel that bothered me. When I’m there, Shoshi, I work the whole time.”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 5 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. 

“Sarah, mazel tov!” The kallah’s mother shook her hand warmly. “It’s so lovely to see you. Come, sit down; it’s fine that you didn’t get here for the chuppah. Look, my sister-in-law Zahava saved you a place.”

Sarah smiled and nodded and walked over to the corner table.

“Hello,” she said to the women seated there, some of whom she recognized and some whom she did not. “Mazel tov.”

“Sarah, mazel tov; how are you?” Elazar’s cousin began passing her bowls of dips one after the other. “You look tired. What time did you work until today?”

“Until six. Thanks.” Sarah took a bit of coleslaw but ignored the other dips.

“It’s no wonder you look like this, with those black circles under your eyes. With children or adults?”

“Both.”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 4 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. 

A few yards past the entry to the Reiness family’s apartment was another steel door, and beyond that was Sarah Reiness’s world. This was where their private home was located; none of her husband’s youths came in there, and she conducted her life there in a tranquil setting: she spoke on the phone to her married children, arranged her meeting calendar, fried tuna patties for lunch for the boys, or painted the sea.

She had already completed seven oil paintings that she’d named “The Sea,” all in the two years since they’d come from Haifa to Acco. They were all painted from the same angle, and were of similar style, but the hues, the boats, and the people on the sandy beach all changed, as if they were chapters in a serial story.

The paintings hung on the walls of the small living room, side by side, and anyone who looked at them could see that the paintbrush had been wielded by an amateur. But Sarah loved them anyway—and so did her husband, Elazar.

The latest painting was the most beautiful of them all.

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 3 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. 

“Ariella?” Mindy Kagan lifted her pencil off her paper. “I don’t understand where the x of this equation goes.”

“Here,” her private tutor replied, pointing to a spot on the page.

“This? This is the second question, and I’m still on the first question.”

“Oy, you’re right,” Ariella said. “So what did you ask me?”

Mindy looked at her, baffled. “Where is the x?”

“In which question?”

Mindy took a deep breath. “The first one.”

“Oh.” Ariella lowered her eyes to the page. Zichron Yaakov. Hadera. Haifa. Tzefas. Teveriah. Acco. Rosh Pinah. Nahariyah. Which part of the “north” had Osher gone to? She drummed the blue eraser on the table and pictured a map of Israel in her mind. Assuming that Osher had not crossed the border into Syria, where had he been speaking from? He didn’t sound carefree and calm. The sudden silence, the cut-off conversation… She’d need to sit with Abba, Ima, Shoshi, and Lakey and ask them for every shred of information that might shed some light on this very bewildering darkness. Which yeshivah could he have gone to that let him be so cut off from home, and supported keeping his family completely out of the loop?

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 2 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. 

“Osher’s disappeared?”

Ariella gripped the note that she’d pulled off the magnet board. Osher’s handwriting danced in front of her eyes.

“This time, he didn’t really disappear,” her mother said heavily. Her voice sounded weary.

“But…?”

“He left us a message.”

Me, too, Ariella wanted to say.

“The mashgiach called to say that Osher came to tell him thank you and good bye, and that he was transferring to a different yeshivah. Then we saw the note. He wrote that he…” She fell silent for a moment. “That he loves us, and that we shouldn’t worry about him, because he’s going to a better place.”

“Last time, two summers ago, he didn’t leave a note, right?”

“That’s right.”

“At least he learned something since then.” Ariella’s lips curled into a ghost of a smile. “Let’s hope it’s a good sign.” She was quiet for a moment. “He told the mashgiach he was switching yeshivos?”

“Yes.”

“And he didn’t write anything to you about the new yeshivah?”

“No. Just that it’s ‘a better place.’”

“What kind of paper did he write the note on?” Ariella whispered.

“What?”

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Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 1 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. 

Nestled among Arab houses, both new and old, on the corner of the alley near the sea, was a house surrounded by an opaque fence. The gate was open, and a two-story structure with winding stone stairs around the side came into view.

The visitor, Gad Shimoni, crossed the neglected yard to the metal door on the ground floor. He set his black case down on the ground and knocked lightly. Aside for the echo of his knocks, there wasn’t a sound to be heard. He turned right toward the stairs, beneath which rested a pile of broken boards, bent out of shape due to the rains and humid, salty sea air. The smell of the sea blended with the faint smell of sawdust.

Shimoni climbed the stairs. The higher he went, the more he could see parts of the boardwalk across from him. The tiny area that separated the top step from the door of the apartment was covered in some type of cheap, synthetic grass, and the heavy door bore a modern-looking nameplate that said “Reiness.” Here, too, his knocks did not draw a live soul to the door.

He retraced his steps and had reached the bottom when he heard the gate open. He put on his most official and professional smile. Were the man and his boys coming back?

They met at the bottom of the stairs, but this was certainly not Elazar Reiness. “Oh, good evening!” the new arrival exclaimed when he noticed Shimoni. He stuck his hand out in a friendly gesture. “Did you also come to meet Reiness?”

Mr. Shimoni politely shook the man’s hand. He was clearly Arabic, and his face was familiar. “Yes, I did come for Rabbi Reiness,” Shimoni replied. “Do you know him?”

“A bit. Not much,” the Arab replied. “But I know you, Mr. Shimoni. Truant officer, aren’t you?”

“Yes, indeed, and you?”

“I’m Hussein Abu Abed Al-Alami, the principal of Abu Usmia. You’ve visited us in regard to a number of our students…”

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