Nicknamed “Torpedo Speedo”, instructor Bram Goodman rocks in a bathing suit. “Ritually sliced,” Bram is nevertheless a “very very very bad Jew”. Bram never attends synagogue, never had a bar mitzvah. “A devout heretic,” Bram unabashedly gorges on pork sandwiches and…
What compels people to deliberately place themselves in harm’s way? Or attempt dangerous feats, endure extreme psychological and physical conditions? And joyfully repeat the experience. An “unlikely candidate “, to imperil her life, Mimi Zieman, had a clear path to medical school…
Counting Lost Stars by author Kim van Alkemade is a cautionary tale about the limits of technology research. The story begins in New York, 1960, where Barnard College senior, Rita Klein, “got into trouble”. Her parents ask Rita to do, “a mitzvah,” surrender her baby for…
The Hebrew Teacher by Maya Arad comprises three novellas. One, dealing with academic friction on an American campus, the second an Israeli grandmother’s USA visit to her indifferent family. Finally the battle for parental control between a mother and her teenaged daughter. Though all…
There was definitely something niggling Ally Gil. It wasn’t her loving husband Ben or her two adorable children that made her feel “verklempt.” A survivor of a miscarriage, an unplanned C-section and a cancer scare, Ally was evermore grateful just to live her life. Yet Ally endured…
