The hidden of things: eleven stories of yearning

This collection of eleven interlinked short stories tells of young Jewish singles in Jerusalem, London and New York struggling to find themselves, their soulmate, and God. Alternating humour and tragedy, the stories are filled with yearning for that elusive truth or love that will lead to a better

To be published G-d willing by Yotzeret Publishing in 2012/13. If you wish to be informed by email when the book is in print, please use the contact form here.

TRAILERS

The following material has not undergone a final edit. It is not intended for circulation:

Excerpt 1: From "Species"

It was at this point that it all began to go wrong. Just as Hannah finished shaking and was about to put her set down, something came flying towards her and, without any warning, a round bumpy object smashed into the side of her head.

Yelling in astonishment, Hannah dropped her Arba Minim in order to clutch at her stinging ear. She barely had time to wonder if she had been shot by a terrorist before another hard object slammed into her shoulder. This was followed closely by a third whizzing into her eye socket. Hannah screamed again, and, clutching her eye, tried to decide whether to crawl under a bench or make a run for it. A round yellow object rolled past her foot as another flew overhead and, to her horror, it began to dawn upon her that she was being pelted with etrogs. As she crouched there in a frenzy of indecision, a man’s voice howled “Disgusting woman!” and yet another fruity projectile came flying over the partition.

Excerpt 2: From "Katamonsta"

Well, with no love life to speak of, let me tell you, dear blogreader, about the supermarket on Palmach street.

See, this is no ordinary supermarket. This is the place where all the Katamon singletons come to stock up. This is where you’ll meet the ones you’ll never run into at singles events or on internet sites, coz they gotta eat, right?

The best time to meet people at this location is on a Friday morning. It’s also at that time that you realize why the street is named for the Palmach, the pre-State army corps – coz when you’re in there on a Friday morning, if you don’t know how to fight your way with sharpened elbows into the queues that sprawl endlessly up each aisle, you’re going to find yourself still there after everyone’s gone home, spending Shabbat with the frozen peas. It’s a wild place.

So on a Friday morning we Katamon singlettes put on our lipstick and our second-best T-shirt (our best one is reserved for strolling casually down Emeq Refaim) and pose next to the veggies, looking seductive and gorgeous while at the very same time like someone who would make a superior mother and worth choosing from all the rest (to paraphrase one of our own, “If you pick me, will I not breed?”)

Excerpt 3: From "The Ged of El Al"

But eventually loneliness set in. The two tractates of Talmud he had brought with him as mementos of the old life glared at him from their shelf, their crumbling covers covered in dust. He found himself desperate to escape them, and stumbled out into the streets, searching for a girl in a short red skirt or following religious Jews with his eyes as they walked quickly down the street, hunching into their black coats to escape his fierce gaze. “They don’t recognize me!” he thought in amazement. “They’re afraid of me!” But the thought did not make him glad.

“It’s so different from home!” Ged observed to Dr Fein. “Here you can look at anything you want – jewels, clothes, women’s bodies. But most of it is not yours, and never will be, so you’re left thirsting after it. By us, we only look at what is ours. We look at a woman only when our parents have decided she is suitable to marry. We look into the Torah and it is ours. We look at what we love, and we love it by looking.”

Dr Fein scribbled something down on a pad. “Have you noticed,” she asked, “that you still say ‘we’?”