The Bookshelf

The Ambassador by Yehuda Avner (z”l) and Matt Rees

The Ambassador Ambassador Yehuda Avner & Matt Rees

Jewish Press Online presents the prologue to The Ambassador (Toby Press) by Yehuda Avner & Matt Rees

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Two: Golda

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

Tevye took the shovel and started to dig. The earth was hard, but after breaking through the frozen topsoil, the ground became looser below. Whoever would have dreamed of Tevye digging up his Golda?

Who Knows But God

For God's Sake!? Chaim Burg

For God’s Sake!?, Chapter 3

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter 13: Tzeitl’s Last Wish

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

"What are we going to eat?" Shmuelik asked Tevye as they changed into their Sabbath clothing. Tevye did not understand the question. "What do you...

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty: Zichron Ya’acov

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

With the birth of Hodel's baby, the time had come for Tevye to journey onward. Family was a matter of tantamount importance, but a Jew had an even higher allegiance to God. Had not the Almighty warned that life in the Holy Land must be lived according to the commandments of the Torah? That meant observing the laws of the Sabbath and the holidays, eating kosher food, donning tallit and tefillin, guarding the treasures of marital purity, and observing all of the six-hundred and thirteen commandments – most of which were flagrantly ignored by the young pioneers on the kibbutz.

The Ambassadors

The Ambassador Ambassador Yehuda Avner & Matt Rees

The 2nd installment of The Ambassador, the engrossing new novel from Toby Press: Part 1; Chapter 1

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Ten: Rabbi Kook

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

"No Jew is an atheist," Rabbi Kook answered. "No matter how confused our young people are with foreign ideas and creeds, the Jewish soul is always pure. Sometimes our eyes are blind and our ears are deaf, but our inner souls long for our God and our Torah. We carry the flame of our heritage eternally within our hearts. Nothing can extinguish it, not even two-thousand years of darkness and exile.

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter One: Anatevka

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

Nemerov, the district Police Commissioner, reared his horse in the air. "Three days," he warned. "The Jews of Anatevka have three days to clear out of the area." It didn't matter that the Jews had lived in Anatevka long before the Russians. The Police Commissioner didn't care that Tevye's great-grandfather, may his memory be a blessing, had cleared the forest by the lake and built the first house in the region. It didn't matter to the Czar and his soldiers that for as long as anyone could remember, the Jews had dutifully paid the taxes which had laden the Czar's table with food, while the pantries of the Jews remained bare.

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Thirty-Eight: A Love Song for Hodel

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

The next chapter of the award-winning novel.

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Seven: ‘Get Thee Forth to the Land’

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

"Oy Golda, Oy Golda," Tevya moaned. "Is this to be your reward? To be thrown to the fish? To have your bones scattered to the ends of the seas? Without any dry earth to warm you, or a flower to grow over your head? Is this to be your reward for being Tevye's wife for twenty-eight years and for raising his seven daughters?"

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty-Five: Tevye Cures the Muktar’s Daughter

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

On the arranged date, the Jews set out to survey the land which their Arab neighbors wanted to sell. The Muktar Abdulla...

For God’s Sake!?

The Bookshelf Chaim Burg

You don't have to be 'right' – to be correct.

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty-Six: Tevye Takes a Wife

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

Both of Elisha's two grown daughters were golden-skinned, beautiful, devoutly religious, and nearly half Tevye's age. The eldest daughter, Carmel, was naturally the...

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter 12: Hodel

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

It was impossible to tell which thought gave Tevye more happiness. The thought of stepping foot in Jerusalem, or the thought of seeing his Hodel again. True, Hodel was his own flesh and blood. She was like a little piece of his Golda.

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Four: ‘Thou Shall Not Murder’

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

The Zionists were happy to have Tevye and his family join them. Feeling no pain from the vodka, Tevye invited their young leader to sit alongside him in the wagon. In a feeling of brotherhood, he even offered him a drink. Ben Zion refused. Alcohol, he said, was a drug which the wealthy class used to keep the peasants content in their religious stupor. He and his friends were drunk with the spirit of freedom, so who needed vodka?

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Six: A Wagon of Worries

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

"If you want to read a truly important book, you should read ‘The Jewish State,’ by Theodor Herzl. He was a prophet who spoke to the Jews of today," said Ben Zion. "The Lord has many messengers," Nachman answered. "In our time, God chose Herzl to bring the message of Zion to our exiled people. But it wasn't Herzl who invented the Zionist movement. It comes from our holy Torah and the Jews who have been following its call for thousands of years."

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Nineteen: A Trail of Tomatoes

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

The indefatigable woodchopper, Goliath, provided the posts and slats for the fence which the settlers began erecting around the kibbutz. Ben Zion adamantly opposed the idea, claiming a fence would turn the settlement into a ghetto and curtail any further expansion.

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter 15: Guardian of Israel

Tevye in the Promised Land Tzvi Fishman

As a sign of his grief over Tzeitl, Tevye tore his shirt and sat on a low stool in Hodel's house in the traditional custom of mourners. He maintained a stalwart expression to disguise the hole he felt in his heart. His strength came from Golda. She appeared to him in a dream and told him not to worry.