Fiction

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

So it had come to this. He was dead, and it was judgement time. His first grade Rebbe had warned him about this moment. Rosh Hashanah davening had reminded him of it. And now, 83 years later, it was really happening. “When you arrive in heaven, you’ll stand before God on...

Velvel couldn’t stop dreaming about Magda Pritzovsky. Every Sunday, he’d see her headed to the Greek Orthodox church with the extra little crosses on top of the crosses. Extra Christian. She would always go with her father. He had a long white beard and reeked of potato vodka. He looked like Rasputin. She...

“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...

Avreml Zingelwald kicks off his shoes and jumps into the freshly dug grave. He’s done this a thousand times before. It’s his job. Yankel Vozserzach hands him the body. They’ve done this so often, multiple times a day, that their movements are fast, mechanical, sterile. This lumpy body in its shrouds...