ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week we’re celebrating Chanukah and, in keeping with our tradition here at English Corner, I’m going to read you a holiday story.  Nona Maccabeus is a contemporary Chanukah story, written by the American Sephardic writer Gloria DeVidas Kirchheimer.

Ms. Kirchheimer is the author of a novel, Amalie in Orbit and a story collection based on Sephardic family life, Goodbye, Evil Eye, which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards. Her short fiction has been published in a number of magazines, including The Antioch Review, Arts & Letters,  North American Review, Persimmon Tree and Lilith, and in several anthologies, including Follow My Footprints, Lost Tribe, and Sephardic American Voices. In addition, her stories have been broadcast over National Public Radio. She is also co-author of a nonfiction book, We Were So Beloved: Autobiography of a German Jewish Community. Under the name Gloria Levy she made one of the earliest recordings of Sephardic folk songs in the United States.

This story, Nona Maccabeus, was published in National Public Radio’s book Hanukkah Lights, Stories of the Season, in 2005. 

A very Happy Chanukah to all of you from all of us here at Radio Sefarad.