Fiction

He never learned much math. Math was limited to two hours a week with a secular studies teacher who spent more time shouting at unruly classmates than teaching arithmetic. It was a shame, because he would have been good at it. He could have been an engineer, in an alternate universe....

I originally wrote this post while I was still religious, and published it under a pseudonym on Jewrotica. At this point, gentlemen, I have nothing to hide. Berel Shtiklwitz was an entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur, to be exact. He recognized a need: a lot of seminary girls out there were horny but...

Gedlya Goldfinger holstered his PsalmRay. Whereas the rest of the Goyishe Velt used neutron chips and nanotechnology to power their zappers, the psalm ray, engineered by The Conglomeration of Rabbis Against Advanced Technology, had been constructed mechanically. It was very steampunk, if Gedlaya had only known what that was, or how...

Avrumi Zeivald was prepared to meet his maker. Or at least a maker. Someone’s, even if not his. The Torah, the Rabbis had assured him, came with a lifetime guarantee. It was guaranteed to be true, or he’d be eligible for a full refund. The problem was, that as Avrumi’s...

The Chevrolet Escapade truly is a tiny a vehicle. But it gets great gas mileage. For the first 26 years, the hydraulic pistons in the back of this one would hold open the trunk when you loaded it. Now a broomstick, permanently stored in the back, sufficed for the...

What lost objects are your own, and which must you return to their owners?Rabbi Akiva says a stack of four coins.Rabbi Meir says five.Who is right? Teiku. No one knows. Schmaltzburg leaned against the fence and took a deep drag of the cigarette. It burned, this being the cheapest, shittiest brand...

The streets were windy. Dark. Grey and overbearing. Little slits carved into limestone to accommodate passerby. Endless tunnels, where people lived over the street. Never walking in a straight line for more a few steps. This was home. Safe. Familiar. Where you had to worry about getting stabbed if you walked one block too far. Where endless...

There is a tradition, at the Eisenkopp Yeshiva for Fine Young Men, that when you make yourself tea, you fling the used teabag at the ceiling and see if it sticks. It is called teabagging, and no one knows why it is done. Some speculate that it’s a reminder that...

“On Rosh Hashanah, we pray to be inscribed in the book of life,” explains Rabbi Feigenkrantz. “On Yom Kippur, Hashem seals the deal.” It was a very narrow window of opportunity that affected the rest of the year, so try to stay inspired. Don’t fuck this up, ok? Rabbi Feigenkrantz...

In 1946, following the holocaust, a highly unusual event occurred, one that involved, for the first time in history, the unification of different sects of Judaism. Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbis met together at Steglitz-Zehlendorf in West Berlin; the conference later became known as the Steglitz-Zehlendorf Conference. The pressing topic...