February 8, 2012

 

The Fiction section of the New Vilna Review offers short stories by writers who are actively engaged in helping to craft the present and future of modern Jewish literature. In their nuanced explorations of Jewish themes, they offer a mirror up to the American Jewish community and to Jewish communities around the world, in an effort to help us see ourselves more clearly.

 

Two Baseball Aficionados in Havana

by Larry Lefkowitz

April 25, 2011

 

In this new short story, author Larry Lefkowitz imagines a meeting between two very different baseball fans in Havana, Cuba - one an American Jew, the other, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. As Lefkowitz's narrator and protagonist makes his way through the winding streets of this venerable Caribbean city, the reader is drawn into his world and begins to see the landscape around him through the character's eyes.

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One Shabbat

 

by Clifford Lamm

March 22, 2011

 

In this new short story, author Clifford Lamm takes his readers on a journey through time and space, touching on Jewish culture, history and religious practice. In doing so, he draws a beautiful thread of connection, linking the Jewish past, present and future in a moving and though-provoking way.

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Shabbes Goy*

 

by Paul Beckman

February 23, 2011

 

*Shabbes Goy— A gentile doing physical work for a Jew on the Sabbath.

 

This Rabbi of my youth, who shall be nameless, not for his protection, but because I swore to myself that I would never utter his name again, called me into his office one Saturday morning. He was tall and powerful looking, with a scraggly beard that I heard some women say made him look younger instead of more mature. In this Orthodox Shul, when only those saying Kaddish stood or even remained in the Shul, the Rabbi would leave the bema during this prayer. His parents were still living and he used this time to take a break from leading the services. This is when he called me in.

 

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Running from Christmas

by Josh Zelikovitz
January 29, 2011

 

In this new short story by Canadian author Josh Zelikovitz, the author brings us into the world of a young Jewish child, caught between a burgeoning sense of Jewish identity and the Christian society in which he lives.

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Jail Bust

 

by Wendy Marcus

December 5, 2010

             

Two young women carrying shimmery scarves hurried past the mostly gray-haired Silver Sneakers ladies. Exercise class matriarch Estelle, whose pearly coif resembled a football helmet that never, ever moved, leaned in to slyly elucidate, “Belly dancers.” Like it was vulgar.

 

Sally remembered her doctor’s charge. She stepped away from the ladies in the YMCA lobby. “Go on, I’ll catch up with you.” She’d been a University District Y member for about a month. This was the first she’d heard of belly dancers. She walked down the hall and peeked around open double doors into a dance studio.
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  • Fiction Archive