One year ago, the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil launched the 8 Nights of Sto­ries series on The Pros­en­Peo­ple. For each of the eight nights of Chanukah, the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil set out to help our read­ers find more sto­ries — to read to chil­dren, to share with young adults, and to read on your own after the kids are in bed. For Chanukah 5775, we’re delight­ed to part­ner with the writ­ers of Hevria, a new col­lab­o­ra­tive of Jew­ish self-iden­ti­fied cre­ators, as guest con­trib­u­tors over the next eight nights.

For the final install­ment, Hevria con­trib­u­tors Yocheved Sid­of, Tzvi Kilov, and MaN­ish­tana write about the sto­ries they think most worth sharing:

Yocheved Sid­of

The Alchemist by Paulo Coel­ho is a book whose sto­ry entered my mind and spir­it. In it, a young shep­herd fol­lows his heart and dreams — the lit­er­al and fig­u­ra­tive — to a buried trea­sure in a far-off land. Along his trav­els he meets peo­ple who chal­lenge his per­cep­tion of the world and per­sis­tence in find­ing his des­tiny. I love the alle­gor­i­cal sto­ry, its char­ac­ters, mys­tery and metaphor. It’s an inspi­ra­tional tale that encour­ages one to dream big dreams- and look with­in for answers.

Tzvi Kilov

Hasidic Tales of the Holo­caust by Yaf­fa Eli­ach: Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty from the edge. This book caus­es a lot of cry­ing, as you’d expect from a col­lec­tion of holo­caust sto­ries. Most of the tears won’t be shed over inhu­man atroc­i­ties, but for the incred­i­ble strength and tri­umph of the human spir­it immor­tal­ized in this collection.

MaN­ish­tana

Imag­ine if Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day had been set on a space­ship, illus­trat­ed by Roald Dahl, and col­ored by M.C. Esch­er, and you would have The Gob­blings by Matthue Roth and Rohan Daniel Eason. A futur­is­tic yet ground­ed, com­mon­place but some­how mys­ti­cal tale that com­forts even as it fright­ens, dar­ing us not only to peek under the bed, but fight what­ev­er might peek back.

View the full Eight Nights of Sto­ries series, in part­ner­ship this year with Hevria!

Relat­ed content

• Essays by Matthue Roth
• Michael Levin: Dynam­ic and Poly­glot: Judais­m’s Hasidic Revival Movement
• The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats by Clau­dia J. Nah­son with Mau­rice Berg­er and Emi­ly Casden