Hanukkah Lights 2011

Hanukkah Lights for 2011 presents a collection of specially commissioned works — brand-new stories in which a bookish schoolboy finds a troublesome streak of defiance, a young woman finds a rewarding new life while confronting sudden tragedy, and a few desperate men find miraculous comfort in a quiet ceremony of light — all read by Susan Stamberg and Murray Horwitz, in a program that launches the third decade of this annual holiday favorite.

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"Nona Maccabeus" by Gloria DeVidas Kirchheimer

A 90-year-old grandmother responds to a teenaged combo's "Hip Hop Hanukkah" with a bit of musical improv, revealing the holiday's deepest meanings in the process. Kirchheimer's other works include the story collection Goodbye, Evil Eye and the novel Amalie in Orbit.

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"Ethics of the Fathers" by Tamar Yellin

At a Hebrew school in the north of England, an insecure 12-year-old discovers new confidence through his own strongest convictions. Yellin, a Yorkshire-based writer, is also the author of the novel The Genizah at the House of Shepher and the collection Kafka in Bronteland and Other Stories.

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"First Day" by Elisa Albert

A young woman, while struggling to overcome a troubled past, suffers a tragic loss, yet also finds her way to a newly rewarding life. Albert's highly acclaimed short stories have appeared in a number of anthologies, and in her own collection, How This Night is Different.

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"Fidelis" by Erika Dreifus

Two years after Pearl Harbor, exhausted Marines on a tiny Pacific island find hope in a moment of unexpected light. Dreifus is the author of Quiet Americans, a story collection inspired by the experiences of her paternal grandparents, German Jews who immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s.