The Other Hand by Andrew Kane
This was it: the moment of truth, the moment he had been dreading.
“Noah, are you listening?” she asked.
He nodded, pretending to be present, his thoughts elsewhere. He knew everything was about to change.
A Life Twice Given
a novel
by David Daniel
Old Town, Czech Republic
December 31, 1999
IT WAS SNOWING HEAVILY IN the Staré Město when the astronomical clock struck midnight. On cue, the famed skeleton flipped the hourglass, the apostles marched behind Saint Peter, and the cock crowed. Below, in a sidewalk café protected by an awning and warmed by infrared heaters, two Americans and a Czech sipped pilsner from heavy glass mugs.
The old scientist’s wrinkled face drooped with age, but his eyes sparkled like robin eggs. “We can give you your son back, but it will be very expensive.”
Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale by Andrew Kane
HE WAS A STREET KID. Union Street, President Street, Carroll Street, Crown Street, and Montgomery Street, to be exact. Nine years old, and fortunate to be one of the first black kids to move to the south side of Eastern Parkway. A dubious distinction indeed.
His old neighborhood, north of Atlantic Avenue, had suited him just fine. But not his mother; she wanted “more,” and that meant “living with white folk,” as she put it. “You’re not going to be another one of those bums out there, making trouble and ending up with nothing,” she once yelled, after learning he’d been truant from school for several weeks. “You’ll be somebody if it’s the last thing I do!”
He was scared when she spoke that way, which was fairly often. And it wasn’t the fury in her voice nor the fire in her eyes that terrified him, it was the fact that she always meant what she said.
Helen by Anita Mishook
A DEEP GOUGE OF DANK, WORM-INFESTED earth had been clawed into the ground in front of her, waiting like an open wolf’s mouth to catch her if she fell. Moaning faceless figures, wrapped in black wool cloaks, jostled and bumped her ever closer to the pit. Then she was alone, her head whipping around and seeing nothing but sodden, grey sky.
Like a blind girl, Helen stabbed her hand out in every direction, finally feeling the feathery shock of real cloth. Heart pounding, she blinked her eyes open, bringing into focus curtains with a print of overly-bright carousel horses set against the sharp white of the wall.
The nightmare was her personal dybbuk carried out of Poland. The demon’s icy fingers grabbed and twisted her sleep much less now than when she was six, but the lonely transcontinental train trip had revived it.
Pushing herself up onto her elbows, she breathed deeply, then rolled onto her back and stared up at the nubby stucco ceiling a yard above her head. Her nephew’s bunk bed in Glendale—that’s where she was. She sucked in another lung full of California air and let it out between pursed lips.
The Legacy of Moses and Akhenaten
by Sheldon Lebold Here is a story. At the end, you may be able to identify the person who is the subject of the story. A baby boy of Hebrew descent is born in an area of ancient Egypt identified as Goshen. The area is inhabited by numbers of Hebrews and, at least for part of the year, by members of pharaonic royalty. Members of the Egyptian priesthood lobby the pharaoh for the death of the boy. However, by intercession of female members of the Egyptian royal family, the boy survives and is raised as a member of the royal family. He learns to speak Egyptian as his first language. He learns and lives the royal customs and practices. He is raised as a prince within the household of the ruling royal family. He has a significant and meaningful relationship with his older sister, who is approximately 5 to 7 years older than he. As he grows into young manhood, our man of royalty turns from a belief in the traditional gods of Egypt to a belief in a single God. He develops and refines his beliefs into full-scale monotheism, a belief in a universal and singular God. An incident occurs wherein one or more Egyptians is killed and wherein our royal subject favors a Hebrew involved in the homicide. Our royal subject feels concern for his own safety and, as a result, withdraws from the royal palace and escapes to hide in the Sinai. He lives there in exile for many years. When he later becomes aware that all those who sought to kill him are dead, he returns to the royal palace and place of residency of the newest claimant of the pharaonic seat. He takes with him his rod or staff, bearing a serpent’s head, which is an imperial sign of Egyptian royalty. He is accompanied by a Levite compatriot. There is a confrontation at the imperial court between our royal subject and the new pharaoh and, while the new pharaoh generally rebuffs the petitions of our royal subject, the pharaoh gives him the right to lead a mixed multitude, comprising the Hebrews of Goshen, the Levites and others, past the outposts of the Egyptian empire into the Sinai. An Exodus occurs, the pharaoh changes his mind about safe passage, the Egyptian army pursues and the Egyptian army is duped into making a deadly mistake, which leads to its defeat and destruction.Who is our hero? Most Jews, Christians and Muslims would identify our hero as Moses. However, Egyptologists or archaeologists might well identify him as the Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV).