"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.

Review of "The Anatomy of Exile" by Zeeva Bukai

It's July 1967, one month after the Six Day War. Tamar Abadi and her husband, Salim, are relaxing on a Tel Aviv beach when a radio broadcasts news of what appears to be a terrorist attack. A woman has been killed by an Arab, and Salim is sure that his sister, Hadas, is the victim.

In the novel The Anatomy of Exile by Zeeva Bukai ((Delphinium Books, January 14, 2025), we learn that Hadas had lived with Tamar and Salim in a mostly dilapidated Arab village on the outskirts of northern Tel Aviv. The Arab who killed Hadas, Daoud, was from that village. Only Tamar knows the full story of Hadas’s relationship with Daoud; she will keep this secret from Salim for years.

On the morning after the thirty-day period of mourning for his sister, Salim, whose very name is evidence of his dual identity as both Arab and Jew, announces to Tamar and their three children, "We're going to America, to New York City… Five years, that's all I need," he tells them. "I'm going to make so much money that when we return, we'll have enough to buy a car and a villa on the beach in Herzliya."

But the family’s stay in New York is becoming more permanent by the year. Their exile is painful for Tamar. “The hours you put in. For what?” she asks her husband. “Let’s go home.”

As she grows up, Tamar’s daughter Ruby forms a relationship with a Palestinian youth who has moved into the apartment upstairs. Remembering the tragic story of Hadas’s relationship with Daoud, Tamar is worried that history will repeat itself with her daughter. She is determined to keep Ruby and Faisal apart.

It’s hard to believe that Anatomy of an Exile is a debut novel, for the storytelling is rich with details and the author skillfully brings the characters to life with sentimentally charged dialogues. Every word that comes out of Ruby’s mouth is that of a typical teenager. Tamar’s longing and doubt are deeply felt by the reader. Even Salim’s reluctance to give up on his American dream is understandable, if not acceptable.

Readers will be captivated by this intimate journey of an Israeli family into their self-imposed exile, and by the struggles of Tamar to keep her daughter safe, her marriage intact, and to find the way to bring her family back to the country she knows as home.

Zeeva Bukai was born in Israel and raised in New York City. Her stories have been published in Carve Magazine, Pithead Chapel, the Lilith anthology Frankly Feminist: Stories by Jewish Women, December Magazine, Image Journal, Jewishfiction.net, Women's Quarterly Journal, and the Jewish Quarterly. She is the Assistant Director of Academic Support at SUNY Empire State University and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

 

Originally posted on The Times of Israel.

A Story in Which Two Yeshiva Students Come to a Shtetl

Two yeshiva buchers went for a walk together and came to an unfamiliar village. It was Friday afternoon and Shabbos was swiftly approaching. As the sun began to set, the students realized they would need to remain in the village until the end of Shabbos. But where would they partake of their Shabbos meal? And where would they spend the night? They would need to ask the village rebbe for a solution to their predicament.

I take a deep breath and hold the pages at a distance. The story, recently sent back to me by the freelance Yiddish translator I found online, holds my attention. So simple and Chelm-like, it transports me backwards in time, to another world and another mindset.

I pick up the original handwritten pages from the table. Pages I had discovered in the attic in a box labeled ‘Father’s writings.’ The pages had not been written by my father, but rather by my paternal grandfather. I was emptying the attic because I was selling my parent’s house. Three months had passed since my father’s death, and it was time to put the past behind me. Proceeds from the house’s sale would be shared with my two sisters.

Read the rest of the story on OfTheBook.

Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb

I’ve been writing ever since I was a boy. Creative writing was my favorite subject in school, and the feedback from my teachers encouraged me. I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps—he was a journalist at the local newspaper—but I was always drawn to writing fiction. 

My first book was a collection of short stories set in Israel, where I had moved with my family at the age of 15. The stories were based on my experiences living on a kibbutz, a collective farming community in Israel’s southern desert. Life on the kibbutz was evolving, from socialist idealism to modern capitalism, and I strived to show these changes in my fiction. 

I wrote two suspense novels set in Bulgaria, but I’ve gravitated to the craft of writing short stories. I enjoy the format of introducing characters and plots in a limited number of words. In many ways, this is more challenging than writing a novel.

Read the full interview on Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb.

My Interview on Talk Radio Europe

I talked with Hannah Murray on Talk Radio Europe's 'The Book Show' in November. 

"Joining us on the line now is Ellis Shuman. He's an American-born Israeli author, travel writer, and book reviewer..."

You can hear the full interview here.

Farewell Twitter

It’s taken me a long time to come to this decision but it’s time to say goodbye. I am closing my Twitter account.

It’s not because of the growing volume of antisemitic tweets, or the racism, misogyny, lies, and fake news that fill its threads. It’s not because of Elon Musk, or his decision to rename the platform as X. It’s not because of Musk’s connection with president-elect Trump.

Well, those are some of the reasons. But also, it’s because I no longer have use for Twitter, or the time suck it’s become in my online life.

I joined Twitter in January 2013 as a way to connect with other authors. I had just published Valley of Thracians, and I was eager to promote the book. Initially I had great success on the platform, quickly building up a following. I made efforts to connect with each and every follower on a personal level. My tweets were being read. Followers were clicking through to my blog and amazingly, I was selling my book.

I wrote about those early Twitter days in How I Got 10,000 Twitter Followers in Less than 10 Months.

I believed I had become an expert on the social media platform. In June 2016, I published an article entitled Ten Most Important Things You Need to Know About Working with Twitter on the Huffington Post. In the article I explained my Twitter Philosophy. “Engage, do not sell” was my advice to fellow authors. My advice was so extensive that I published a follow-up article entitled Five More Things You Need to Know About Twitter.

At that time, I had 35,000 followers. I was using Hootsuite to schedule and publish multiple tweets throughout the day. I tweeted about my books, included links to my blog articles, and shared my book reviews. I tweeted about Bulgaria, about Israel, and about the craft of writing. My tweets were being read.

In August 2016, I wrote on Medium:

Using Twitter has been, for me, a way to promote my writing. When I post a blog article, I tweet about it to attract eyeballs, to get as many readers as possible. To make a name for myself.

Maybe that was a successful mission then, but I no longer see any benefits from using Twitter.

The platform has suffered in the Musk era, with scores of my followers no longer active, or who have already closed their accounts. A tweet of mine which would previously get hundreds of impressions can no longer get more than 50. No one is actually reading what I tweet. There are no clicks, visits to my blog, or sales of my books.

It’s become a waste of my time and a burden to maintain the account. I had reached a peak at 44,000 followers; that number is now down to 36,800. Nearly all of those followers have inactive accounts. None of them will miss me, just as I won’t miss any of the 24,900 people I currently follow.

I don't plan to replace Twitter with Bluesky or any social media alternative. No more tweets for me. Twitter served its purpose and then lost its luster. It’s been a long road which has now come to its end.

Goodbye Twitter.

Related articles:

How I Got 10,000 Twitter Followers in Less than 10 Months

Ten Most Important Things You Need to Know About Working With Twitter

Five More Things YouNeed to Know About Twitter

My 100,000th Tweet. What’s It Worth?

But What Are They Eating in 'Rakiya'?

When Bulgarians sit down for a meal, they raise their glasses to make a traditional toast. “We look each other in the eyes and say ‘Nazdrave’,” explains a Bulgarian author to his Israeli visitor in the story ‘Sozopol’ in the collection Rakiya – Stories of Bulgaria. ‘To your health!’

The characters in the story are drinking rakiya, a Bulgarian alcoholic beverage that's made from fermented fruits, most commonly grapes, apples, pears, peaches, apricots, and cherries. “It’s best when it’s homemade,” the Bulgarian author continues. The Israeli finds the drink powerful, burning his throat with its strong alcoholic punch.

“It’s an acquired taste," the Bulgarian says, laughing at the Israel’s reddening face.

Read the rest of the article on the 'But What Are They Eating?' website.

Fran Lewis Interviews Me on Blog Talk Radio

"These stories are fantastic. If you've never been to Bulgaria, you'll want to get on a plane right now."

Listen to the full interview here.