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.

"I appreciate that many of the stories are interlinked"

Excellent. Some stories are funny, but even those are touched with poignancy. Some are heartbreaking. All are enlightening, fascinating, well worth reading. I do highly recommend this book and just wish I'd been able to do so when it was first released.

Of course it's not too late. Go get it now!

I appreciate that many of the stories are interlinked, referencing towns, events, and even characters from others. But even with those additional clues I'm not sure I understood the author's intent in all the stories.

For example, I wonder about the Roma mother, and whether she'll actually ever get around to helping her daughter to find a way to a better life. The ending seems intentionally ambiguous....

The story about brothers definitely made an impact on me. The ending, gosh. But before that, I loved this bit: "I lived in his shadow for years, never meeting his expectations. Anton always looked down at me, I thought. This bothered me greatly, more now than before." What an intelligent, and valuable, insight, that children can overlook slights & other hardships, but adults can remember them with pain. Think about that.

A character says: "Today, antisemitism is virtually absent in the country, and most Bulgarians have a very favorable opinion of Israel." I wonder if that's still true, as the far-right takes over many European offices, and as the war expands past Gaza on its first anniversary.

I hope to share this marvelous book with some of the members of my book club.

Review posted on Goodreads

Author Interview - Hasty Book List

Many authors have inspired me over the years. During high school, I eagerly read every novel and short story written by Kurt Vonnegut. My favorites were "Cat's Cradle" and "The Sirens of Titan". My high school thesis was devoted to Vonnegut and I remember writing to his publicist and receiving an autographed copy of "Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons" - his non-fiction collection of essays.

Next, I became a big fan of John Irving, especially enjoying his novels "The World According to Garp" and "The Hotel New Hampshire", but also his earlier work, "Setting Free the Bears" and "The Water-Method Man". As an aspiring author the thing I most admired about John Irving was his statement that he wrote the ending first, and then he created the plot for his novel, a story that would reach that concluding line. When I write, I too envision where the plot will take me in the end, and then my creative process brings me there eventually.

And one other author I must mention – Haruki Murakami. I'm not sure when I started reading his novels and short stories, but certainly "Norwegian Wood" was one of the first. I once made myself a list of seven reasons why I enjoyed reading Murakami. Among the reasons were that the settings in Murakami's stories are realistic, yet anything can happen. At one point, the bookshelf in my home included every Murakami book translated into English, but in subsequent years, my collection was built with digital copies as well.

Read the rest of the interview on Hasty Book Links.