Excerpts from a memoir by the acclaimed writer, who passed away last week at 85.

Ronit Matalon’s “Bliss: A Novel” uses flashbacks to tell the story of Sarah, a politically active photographer, and Ofra, a selfless graduate student.

We end 2017 with an infusion of religious, secular, biblical, and sensual registers and sensibilities as we enter the poetic world of Esther Ettinger.

A story about a simple Jewish man who uses his minimal understanding of Christmas to try to make sense of his marital obligations.

In honor of the beginning of Hanukkah, we read Etgar Keret’s story “Childish Things”, which takes place during the holiday.

In Yehudit Hendel’s story “The Dancer”, the narrator talks about life, death, and God with a barefoot man dancing in a park.

Slovak-born Tuvia Ruebner was awarded the Israel Prize in 2008 and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Literature Prize in 2012. In Hebrew, he is the author of fifteen volumes of poetry, two photograph albums, and a monograph on the poetry of his close friend, writer-scholar Lea Goldberg, as well as other literary criticism and translations.

Writer, critic, and literary scholar Tamar Merin’s story “What Are You Looking At?” explores the anxiety of immigration from the perspective of a mother taking her son for ice cream.

“About the Night” by Anat Talshir explores what happens to the relationship of a Christian Arab and an Israeli Jew when Jerusalem is portioned.

Eshkol Nevo’s newest novel “Three Floors Up” examines a society in crisis, through the turmoils, secrets, unreliable confessions, and problematic decisions of the building’s residents.