Vicentka vs Garbage Water

The accompanying illustration from Helen Oyeyemi's recently published short story Vicentka vs Garbage Water. The story describes a chance encounter between two individuals at a tram stop on a cold winter night in Prague.

Lehel Kovács

Boulevard de la Madeleine in Winter

Late 19th century Parisian winter scenes as depicted by Fuato Giusto. A Morris column on the left can be seen along Boulevard de la Madeleine as pedestrians on foot and horse drawn passengers pass by.

Fausto Giusto

Christmas Eve in Milan - 12/24/21

Christmas revelers stroll along Milan's Corso Vittorio Emanuele II with the iconic Duomo gothic cathedral in the background. 

Luca Bruno/AP

Old City J'lem - 12/23/21

Jerusalemites congregate in the Christian Quarter of the Old City as the holiday season kicks into gear and Christmas approaches. 

Amit Elkayam/NYT

Night Shift, Binyamin Regional Council - 12/22/21

IDF forces on the scene after an attempted shooting attack in the Binyamin regional council just outside of Ramallah in the late hours of the evening of December 22nd. The attacker was neutralized with no Israeli injuries.

Kan

Kamianets-Podilskyi Castle

The medieval fortress at Kamianets-Podilskyi in western Ukraine. The former Ruthenian-Luthuanian castle was also a prominent Polish fortress. It is located in the historic region of Podolia. This picture just represents everything I love about winter. The history is particularly fascinating as well.

Стара_фортеця

Stormy J'lem 12/20/21

Pedestrians cross Rehov Yafo in Jerusalem amidst heavy rainfall during winter storm Carmel. The Golan Heights received over 81 mm in rainfall as well as some snow on Mount Hermon.

Kan

Chez Tartar

Night stroll in Les Batignolles, 17th arrondissement, Paris.

October '21

 JGZ

Tube 12/13/21

 Commuters on the tube in London.

Daniel Leale/AFP/Getty-Images

London 12/11/21

Restaurant patrons and pedestrians in London's Leadenhall Market. The British government has announced increased Covid measures and an expedited vaccine booster campaign aimed to tackle the spread of the Omicron variant during the winter holiday season.

Alex Ingram/NYT

Tmol Shilshom

Below is a photo from the current exhibition at Tmol Shilshom, one of Jerusalem's most iconic and atmospheric cafes. The curators of the exhibit designed and created cut out photos, objects, scribblings, and other objects to display the history of the cafe and Jerusalem's intertwined wider literary culture. Tmol Shilshom is located in the Nahalat Shiva neighborhood of West Jerusalem, tucked away in a small alleyway off bustling Rehov Yafo. It has long been home to many prominent writers and artists in the city. Among them, Aharon Appelfeld, Yehuda Amichai, and S.Y Agnon. Like former long forgotten cafes such as Cafe Atara, Cafe Alaska, and Nitzan Cafe, there still exists the recreated atmosphere of European coffeehouses that were so influential to past Jewish writers. The exhibit will be in place until December 31st.

Jessica Steinberg/Times of Israel

Ukraine Defends - 12/9/21

Soldiers of the Ukrainian army's 25th Airborne Brigade patrol in the eastern city of Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast. In recent weeks, Ukraine's armed forces have been on the highest alert as Russian military units have mobilized in mass on the border, sparking fears of an imminent invasion. For nearly eight years, Ukrainian soldiers have fought insurgency battles with Russian backed separatist forces in the eastern region of the country.

Brendan Hoffman/NYT

Yuri Felsen - Republished

Yuri Felsen (born: Nikolai Freudenstein), pictured on the top row, sixth from the left, is seen with a group of literary colleagues from the Paris-based émigré journal Chisla. Felsen, who died in 1943 at Auschwitz, will be published in English for the first time ever. His work, which had been long forgotten and is still essentially unknown, will now be shared with a wide international audience. 

Felsen's 1930 novel, Deceit, which was originally published only in Russian, details the unnamed narrator's experiences in Paris during the inter-war period in diary form. It largely centers on his troubled relationship with his love interest, Lyolya. Felsen has been praised as "The Russian Proust."   

Prototype Publishing

Jessica McClintock

 1930 - 2021

Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images

Arc de Triomphe

Panoramic view from the top of Paris's Arc de Triomphe looking southwards towards the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

Andrea Mantovani NYT

TLV 2021

For the first time, Tel Aviv was named as the world's most expensive city according to The Economist. Tel Aviv has long been known for its high cost of living, especially within that past decade plus, however it had yet to take the top spot on annual rankings until now. Much of the city's high cost, as well as that of Israel overall, can be chalked up to the country's "island economy" and the increased prices of groceries and transportation as well as continuously high import costs.

Photo: Aerial view of a section of the Ayalon Highway, which runs between Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan.

Matanya Tausig/Flash 90