Introduction

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The following fifty-six stories in Yiddish tell of the life and times of a hilarious group of people who live in a small town and get into all kinds of scrapes and adventures

In fact, several of these people live in the same apartment building

For example, Eddy Topolsky and his eight-year old son, Junior (Little Eddy), live on the third floor of this building

Their friends, Vikram and Shayna Fygenboim, live on the twelfth floor

There is a funny story here (Set 9 - #1) with Eddy, Junior and Vikram and also the custodian of the building, Alon, which involves a jacket and a broken elevator

Junior is a little rascal who is always in trouble with everybody, but he definitely loves his grandma, Bobe Malke (Set 10 - #2)

TROUBLE is an important word here because there is a story where Junior and Eddy meet a puppy whose name is Trouble (Set 5 - #1)

Junior goes everywhere; and in one story (Set 7 - #4) he is even at the airport, and he wants to buy a ticket to Barcelona

?Why, you may ask

He did not want to take a test in mathematics and felt he had to leave the country

And we meet the poor overworked man at the counter of the airport, Ezra, in this story and several other stories as well

For example, we read about Ezra's humorous encounter with Bea who is, in fact, on her way to Barcelona and wants to make sure that she has two seats together on her flight (Set 7 - #2)

Other neighbors in the building mentioned above are Lucy Varshinsky and her adult granddaughter, Lin

In one story (Set 8 - #3), Junior says to Lucy that she is very old and perhaps she has known dinosaurs in the past

Lucy orders him out of her apartment; a very funny story

And Junior was only trying to interview Lucy for a class project. You get to meet Junior's classmates and friends in several of the stories

Lucy is a woman with very strong opinions, and she can make it difficult for the people she interacts with

For example, see the story with poor Ilana, an overworked sales clerk (Set 4 - #3)

We first meet Ilana (Set 2 - #1) when two of the adolescent girls in our stories, Zari and Lily, are in her shop admiring a very expensive red jacket

In another story (Set 3 - #1), before Ilana comes out to greet a customer, we see that Vikram has a real sense of style when he helps the customer choose between two different coats

And then there is Óskar, the town’s resident artist, who has his share of adventures with many of the other townspeople

In this collection you will find different stories involving children, involving doctors, involving three famous restaurants (Tel Aviv Restaurant, Haifa Restaurant and "Nathan's Noshes") and last but not least, a story involving a talking parrot