Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Bulgarian First Day Cover


The envelope was creased from being in my friend's briefcase for several months, but actually, it had much more aging in its history. It was a First Day Cover, an envelope bearing a stamp cancelled on the date the stamp was first available for postal use, dating back to 1992.

The image on the stamp, and on the postcard inside the envelope, was of the Great Synagogue of Sofia. The words on the envelope in Bulgarian explained the significance of the stamp and the year it was issued.

500 years of Sephardic Jewish settlement in Bulgaria.

Of course! 1992 was 500 years after the Jews were expelled from Spain. Although Jews have had a continuous presence in historic Bulgarian lands since before the 2nd century CE, apparently a significant number arrived in the country following their expulsion from Spain.

The Sofia Synagogue is one of the most beautiful buildings in the Bulgarian capitol and its construction, completed in 1909, would serve as the religious home for the city's mainly Sephardic Jewish community.


In 2009, Jodie and I attended the 100th anniversary celebration of the synagogue, a ceremony in which the President of Bulgaria sat a few rows ahead of me in the audience. We returned to the synagogue on a number of occasions, and prayed in the building's main sanctuary on the High Holidays.

Back to the First Day Cover envelope. How did it come to be in my possession, 33 years after the stamp was issued?

In August 2024, I spoke to the Literary Modiin book club about my recently published collection of short stories, Rakiya - Stories of Bulgaria. One of the attendees of the Zoom session listened to my talk about Bulgaria, and afterwards gave the envelope to the book club's founder/organizer, Julie Zuckerman. Julie put the envelope in her brief case, intending to give it to me the next time we met. We very occasionally travel together on a Modiin-bound train after the end of our work day in Tel Aviv.

This week, I attended one of Literary Modiin's monthly gatherings in person, and Jodie joined me. The authors giving talks about their books were  Ayelet Tsabari, Avner Landes, and Joan Leegant. Before the session began, Julie gave me the envelope. The next day I managed to translate the words printed on the envelope.

500 years of Sephardic Jewish settlement in Bulgaria. An amazing milestone in Bulgarian Jewry's story and I had the envelope to mark the occasion.


Monday, March 10, 2025

"Last Rounds" - short story


When I invite my customers to order their last drinks, several raise their fingers, sure I’ll remember what they previously ordered. One more beer, one more vodka. Another Gin & Tonic. In the darkened room, several night owls linger at their tables, heads low, engaged in whispered conversation. One man sits alone on a stool at the far end of the bar. He’s wearing a red plaid shirt and sports a thin gray goatee and wise eyes. My age, maybe a few years younger. He's been sitting there for about thirty minutes or so. He calls me over.

“It’s been busy tonight, hasn’t it?” It’s more a statement than a question. “Do you always get such late-night crowds?”

“It can get noisy,” I tell him, waiting patiently for his order.

“It must be difficult to handle all this on your own,” the man notes.

“What can I get you?” I point at his empty shot glass. “Another?”

“No, I’m fine. I’ll just sit here for a while, if you don’t mind.”

“We’ll be closing soon.” I turn to attend to the other customers.

It’s not my bar, but I work so many shifts, you’d think I owned the place. I’ve been working here since my college days. At first it was to finance my studies, but now it just helps pay the bills. The steady employment at nights leaves my days free to pursue my writing career. Freelance, mostly, but nothing steady. I make do on what I earn as a bartender. Which is not all that much. Luckily, the tips are good.

We get all kinds at the bar. The college gangs, loud and boisterous. The businessmen, drinking away the pressures of their dead-end jobs. Couples on romantic interludes. Men and women. Men trying to pick up women. Men and men. Women and women. Divorcees, deadbeats. All kinds.

Everyone’s welcome—that’s what the sign in our window says.

They share their frustrations, their troubles, and their worries, as if I’m their therapist. I nod when appropriate, but I have few words of advice to offer. They don’t seem to mind. After spilling their life stories, they pay their bills and head out into the night. Sometimes so drunk I need to call them a taxi.

Tonight’s shift has been nothing out of the ordinary. The early hours were busy with beer and wine orders. Fancy cocktails and spritzers. Whisky—on the rocks or straight. Casual drinking at first, followed by more serious alcohol consumption. Nothing I can’t handle, especially with Melanie at my side.

Melanie’s a good worker. She serves the drinks and the salty accompaniments that keep everyone drinking. Pretzels, peanuts, potato chips. Melanie cleans counters, wipes tables, washes glasses, and pours draft beer. All of this Melanie does with a dimpled tip-encouraging smile.

“How would I get along without you?” I say, as I have on many occasions.

“We’re a good team,” she admits.

“You’re good at your job, completely trustworthy, and the customers appreciate you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she says, dismissing my compliments with a wink of her eye.

Melanie’s good looking, and I’m attracted to her, but if I considered something more than our companionship in the bar, nothing would ever come of it. She has a steady boyfriend.

“Gus is so demanding,” Melanie complains. “And he doesn’t trust me. He can get jealous over nothing. If he saw how the guys ogle me, reach for my ass, he’d go berserk. You don’t know what he’s capable of!”

Melanie and me—we’re coworkers. We've share tidbits about our personal lives, but nothing more. Still, I’d do anything for her. We’re a team. An inseparable team.

An hour before closing, I send Melanie home. She has a dentist appointment in the morning and I assure her I can handle things on my own. Now, an hour later, I'm serving the night's final orders.

“You been working here long? How’s that going for you?”

It’s the single man, the one with the gray goatee. He gazes at me while he fingers his empty shot glass. I had assumed he’d already left.

“It’s okay.” There’s something about him, something that makes me suspicious, but I can’t determine what it is. “Is there anything else I can get you? I told you we’re closing.”

“No, I’m good. Very good, in fact.”

That statement invites a reply on my part. “What’s so good?”

“This bar. It’s an OK place, wouldn’t you say?” He looks around the place, at the remaining customers, finishing their drinks. “I wondered what you thought about it.”

It’s a strange thing for him to say, not anything I’m expecting. How am I supposed to respond? Should I tell him I’m satisfied working the night shift? That the pay is sufficient and the hours conducive to my morning writing sessions?

“I guess you could say that,” I reply at last.

“It’s in a good neighborhood, I think. That’s why I bought the place down the street last week.”

“Frank’s?” I hadn’t known that Frank’s bar was up for sale.

“Yeah, I got it cheap. Old man Frank wants to retire, head to Florida, I guess. He needed someone like me to take over, to build it up. I think Frank’s has a lot of potential, probably more than this place,” he says, indicating my bar with a dismissive wave of his hand. “No offense, of course, but a bit of competition never hurt. Two bars on the same street. It might even attract more business; wouldn’t you say?”

I nod and continue to rinse off the glasses and put them into the dishwasher. I expect the man to be gone when I turn around, but he’s still there, perched on his stool and staring at me.

“You're good at your job. I’ve seen how you work and I’m impressed. That’s why I have an offer for you.”

“An offer?”

“I’d like you to come work for me. At Frank’s. In fact, I want you to manage the place. I need someone with experience, and you have no shortage of that. You could run Frank’s, I think. So, what do you say?”

“Are you for real?” Then I step back, realizing I’d said these words aloud.

“I guess you didn’t expect to get a job offer at this hour of the night. But, let me tell you, my offer’s real and I think you’ll manage Frank’s just fine.”

I look around, wondering if any of the customers are overhearing our conversation. One couple gets up to leave, the man putting his arm around the woman’s shoulder so suggestively that I suspect they’re not married. At the back, three college students raise their beer mugs, laughing at a raunchy joke. No one’s paying attention to me and the man sitting at the counter.

“Listen, I don’t know who you are or anything about you.” I’m trying to sound diplomatic in my response. If his offer’s real, and there’s an opening at Frank’s with better pay and more responsibility, maybe it’d be something to consider. Do I have any loyalty to this place? Despite the many years I've put in, not really. I never said I’d work here forever. Changing jobs? Maybe, if the conditions are right.

Managing Frank’s, with more responsibility, will mean more hours, I tell myself. What about the mornings I devote to freelance writing? If I had to spend more time at the bar overseeing things, I wouldn’t have as much time for that. But on the other hand, if the pay at Frank’s is good, maybe I could give up most of the writing gigs.

“What sort of salary are we talking about?” I ask.

The man throws out a number, and it’s significantly higher than what I’m currently being paid. “And, of course, there are tips,” he adds. “I see your customers here are very generous, so there’s no doubt you’d make a pretty penny managing Frank’s. You’d share them with your coworkers, of course, but I’m sure there’d be enough to go around.”

My coworkers! Melanie!

“I can’t imagine handling the night shifts without you.” I had said those very words to Melanie earlier in the evening. “We’re a good team,” she’d said to me, and she was right. We are a team. An inseparable team.

“I’ll have to think about it,” I tell the man. “But there is one thing,” I add.

“What’s that?”

I weigh my words, as I don’t want him to withdraw his offer. “If I would come work for you, you'd have to also hire my coworker.”

“Your coworker?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Melanie. She’s great at what she does. You’d have to give her a job.”

“Is that your condition?” he asks.

Have I screwed up his unexpected offer? No matter what the salary, I couldn’t do that to her.

“Yes. Me and Melanie, or no deal.”

“Well, then.” He stands up and reaches out to shake my hand. But then, he doesn’t. He sits back down.

Confused, I stop drying the beer mug I’m holding and step back.

“My name is Gus,” he says. “Melanie’s told me about you, but I had to check for myself.”

“What?”

“She’s said only good things, I can assure you,” he says. A mischievous smile appears on his face.

“Gus is so demanding,” Melanie said to me earlier that evening. “You don’t know what he’s capable of!”

“You’re Melanie’s boyfriend,” I say, realizing he’s been testing me. Playing me for a fool.

“Yeah, we’ve been together for a while.”

“Are you buying Frank’s?”

“Of course not! Why would I buy that place when your bar here is doing such good business? Besides, I don’t have the funds.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing for you to say. You’re good. You stuck up for Melanie, and that’s what counts. She can continue working with you. I should be going. I don’t want to get back too late and wake her. She’s got a dentist appointment in the morning.”

Gus walks out. All the other customers have already left and I’m alone in the bar, still confused by what just happened. Strange things can happen in the middle of the night, I guess. An over-jealous boyfriend. And I had fallen for his trap!

I put the last of the whisky glasses on the shelf, wipe off the counter, and hang up my apron. I shut the lights and lock the door. Time to go home and get some sleep. I have that writing assignment I need to finish.

# # #

Originally published in POSTBOX, Scotland's International Short Story Magazine.

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

Sunday, March 2, 2025

37th Place in the Tel Aviv Marathon!

On Friday, I ran the 10 kilometer run in the Tel Aviv Marathon, clocking in at 59:24, a personal best. This put me in 37th place in my age category (65-69). I am very pleased with the result!

I had a bad start to the race. As I approached the starting line, I couldn't get my Nike running app to load. There were 20,000 runners participating in the 10 kilometer run, 5,000 of them starting in my heat, and as a result, my Internet connection wasn't working. The app said 'Unable to establish a connection' and I tried to restart it, to no avail. I crossed the starting line, and for the entire race I worried that my feet hadn't hit the black mark on the road that recorded the start time.

I gave up on the app, stuffed my phone into my running belt, and concentrated on the race. Still, I couldn't dismiss my worries. Had my feet touched the black mark? Would my time be recorded?

The run itself wasn't easy. My legs felt a jolt each time my feet landed on the hard pavement of Tel Aviv's streets - Rokach, Dizengoff, Ben Gurion, Ibn Gvirol, and back on Rokach. I kept a steady pace the entire race - the second half was run at exactly the same time as the first half - but I had nothing left in me for a final sprint.

I crossed the finish line and looked at my phone. I had done it in under an hour! Awhile later the official results came in. 59 minutes and 24 seconds. This was 2 seconds faster than my result in the Tel Aviv Night Run in October.

As I said, I am very pleased with the result!


Previous articles

Tel Aviv Marathon Man: I Run the 10 Kilometer Race

Jerusalem Is Much Harder to Run than Tel Aviv

The Tel Aviv Marathon was yesterday. I ran my 10 kilometer race today!

I Run the Jerusalem Marathon 10K and Finish in 18th Place in My Age Category



Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Podcast appearance on Book Lover's Companion

"We had never visited Bulgaria before. We utilized the two years living in Sofia to travel extensively around Bulgaria, to learn about its culture and history, to visit its picturesque villages and see its stunning nature. We fell in love with the country. I've always desired to be a writer and when the two-year contract ended and we came back to Israel I realized that I could go back to Bulgaria every day through my writing, and that's when I began to write about Bulgaria."

I joined Edith from Book Lover's Companion to talk about my collection of short stories in and about Bulgaria, my adventures, and my love for this country.



Saturday, February 15, 2025

"Last Rounds" Published in POSTBOX


My story "Last Rounds" has been published in POSTBOX - Scotland's International Short Story Magazine.


When I invite my customers to order their last drinks, several raise their fingers, sure I’ll remember what they previously ordered. One more beer, one more vodka. Another Gin & Tonic. In the darkened room, several night owls linger at their tables, heads low, engaged in whispered conversation. One man sits alone on a stool at the far end of the bar. He’s wearing a red plaid shirt and sports a thin gray goatee and wise eyes. My age, maybe a few years younger. He's been sitting there for about thirty minutes or so. He calls me over.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Rakiya review - Kat Loves Books


Rakiya: Stories of Bulgaria
 by Ellis Shuman is an anthology of short stories about…you guessed it – Bulgaria. As with any anthology, I will review each short story on it’s own.

Rakiya… The spring competition of who makes the best Rakiya – an alcoholic beverage. This was okay, a story of friendship.  3 stars

Mother and Daughter… A Roma lives with her daughter above a bakery.  They live off anything they are given, or can steal.  The mother believes she is doing everything for her daughter.  This was just sad.  2 stars

Sozopol…  A writers conference turns deadly.  Really good twist.  4 stars

Three Women in Sofia… An American decides to attend classes in Bulgaria, and meets three women who taught him more than he could have expected.  Really quite good.  4 stars

Lockdown… Two young girls are charged with a crime when entering Bulgaria during lockdown.  This was a really good story.  5 stars

Overall, these stories are of a country of which I knew very little (as mentioned by the author), and he has, indeed, broadened my knowledge.  The countryside sounds wonderful, and the people diverse.  The author has incorporated attributes of human nature into these stories that are not necessarily unique to Bulgarians, but in a setting that is.  He writes very well, and the stories are entertaining, if often sad.

Read the full review of all of the stories on Kat Loves Books

Thursday, January 23, 2025

"Ten Minutes" - short story

When the sirens sounded at three in the morning, the five members of the Lutsky family jumped from their beds. This wasn’t the first time that the Houthis in Yemen had fired a missile at Israel, and it wasn’t the first time that their small moshav near Ramla was one of the areas alerted to the incoming attack, so the Lutskys were familiar with the drill. They ran downstairs to their safe room−a reinforced room on the ground floor that served as Natan’s office on the days he worked from home, and which would now provide protection for their family.

As she passed through the kitchen, five-year-old Miri glanced out the window. The sidewalk was lit by a streetlight; the Frenkels’ house next door was completely dark.

“Abba, there’s a man outside!” Miri said, stopping in her tracks.

“Hurry, Miri,” her mother Anat called from the doorway of the safe room. “We only have a minute to get in.”

The siren was still wailing, but Miri didn’t move. “That man doesn’t have a place to go! The rocket could hit him!”

“Which man?” Natan asked, joining his daughter in the kitchen. “I’m sure he’s okay,” he said, urging his youngest daughter to follow him to safety.

“He needs to come in!” Miri said. She brushed aside Matka, the family mutt, and said, “I’m opening the door.”


Read the rest of the story on Esoterica.

Friday, January 17, 2025

"Terms of Abandonment" - short story

The first time she saw him, her biological father refused to speak with her. She had been waiting at the corner coffee shop, as agreed, but when he showed up, he didn’t even cross the street and approach her table. She remained there for half an hour after he walked off, her cappuccino cold and forgotten.

What kind of father was he to have had no concern for her all these years? Admittedly, she had rarely given him a second thought until she packed up her mother’s belongings in the weeks following her death and discovered the box of her memories. A high school yearbook, report cards from grade school, a trophy from a running competition. Dried flowers inside a small book of poetry. Nothing worth saving. She would remember her mother for other things. And then, at the very bottom of the box, several envelopes, the address written in fading blue ink.

With shaking hands, she opened the first letter. It started out with ‘Dearest Marjorie’ and every other sentence contained words of endearment. ‘Love of my life’. ‘My Marjorie’. ‘Oh, my darling.’ Sweet nothings, Kitsch phrases for sure, yet they were words expressing passion, a connection that must have been just as strong for her mother.

His name was Emmanuel, but he signed his letters Manny. Even though everyone called her mother by her nickname, Marge, he addressed her as Marjorie, as if he was afraid of letting go of a single letter in her name.

Yet he had let her go. Shortly after her mother gave birth, Emanuel disappeared from her mother’s life and never had he appeared in hers. Whenever she asked her mother to tell her about her father, begging almost, the discussion had been taboo. She learned nothing at all and the subject was dropped.


Read the full story in In Parentheses Literary Magazine (Volume 9, Issue 2) Winter 2025. Available for purchase on MagCloud.