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A novel of Sephardic life revives the Jewish family saga
(JTA) — The very first Jewish book was a multigenerational Jewish family saga. But while the Bible went on to achieve some commercial and critical success, the genre doesn’t always get much love.
Consider the big best-selling books of the last century. Critics may debate the literary merits of bestsellers like “Exodus” by Leon Uris, “The Source” by James Michener and “The Chosen” by Chaim Potok, but cultural historians generally agree that each was an important indicator of Jewish tastes and preoccupations post-World War II.
But two other popular books of the era, both multigenerational Jewish family sagas, are rarely mentioned these days. Belva Plain’s novel, “Evergreen,” published in 1978, is a rags-to-riches story about a Polish-Jewish immigrant and her offspring. It spent 41 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list in hardcover and another 20 in paperback, and was made into a miniseries by NBC in 1985. Gloria Goldreich’s novel, “Leah’s Journey,” also published in 1978, is also about an Ashkenazi family that experiences most of the upheavals of the previous 100 years.
Although “Leah’s Journey” won the National Jewish Book Award in 1979, I’ve never seen it nor “Evergreen” on a list of the century’s best or “most essential” Jewish novels.
And in truth, the qualities that make a book wildly popular aren’t always the ones that make it literary. A New York Times reviewer once described Plain’s books as “easy, consoling works of generous spirit, fat with plot and sentiment, thin in nearly every other way and almost invisible in character development.”
I brought all this baggage to my review copy of “Kantika,” Elizabeth Graver’s 2023 novel, described by its publisher as a “dazzling Sephardic multigenerational saga.” It’s about a wealthy Turkish Jewish family whose fortunes are reversed by the First World War and whose members are dispersed to Barcelona, Cuba and finally New York. And yet while it has all the drama one might expect from such journeys and the novels about them, it remains both lyrical and literary, and likely, if there is any justice, to stand the test of time.
How Graver pulled it off is something she and I talked about last week, when I reached her in Cape Cod. (Graver, the author of five previous books of fiction, teaches creative and nonfiction writing at Boston College.)
At the center of the novel is Rebecca, a privileged daughter of a Jewish factory owner in Constantinople who must constantly reinvent herself as a daughter, wife, mother, immigrant and businesswoman. The character is based on Graver’s own grandmother, and the story Graver tells is rich in details about the Sephardic heritage of her mother’s side of the family. There are snatches of Ladino dialogue and song lyrics, and organic depictions of Ladino folk and religious culture.
“I had interviewed my grandmother telling stories when I was 21,” said Graver, who is 59. “And I’ve been sort of haunted by but a little scared of telling the story.” Between research and trips to Turkey, Spain and Cuba, the book took her a decade to write.
Between research and trips to Turkey, Spain and Cuba, “Cantina” took Elizabeth Graver a decade to write. (Author photo Adrianne Mathiowetz)
She decided against a nonfiction version of her grandmother’s life, thinking the story would contain too many holes and force her to insert herself into what would then become a sort of literary memoir. Instead, the book is fiction stretched over a real-life scaffolding: Each chapter begins with a photograph of the relatives who inspired the book’s characters.
One of the key relationships in the book is between Rebecca and her step-daughter, Luna, a willful, intelligent girl with a disability that affects her speech and movement. Rebecca dedicates herself to Luna’s education and what we would now call physical therapy, a set-up for shmaltz (or its Sephardic equivalent) if there ever was one. But just when you expect her to cue the string section, Graver often veers to show you how complicated and difficult people — even admirable people — can be.
“Rebecca is beautiful, and has that power and strength but is a bit narcissistic. She kind of relies on surfaces but is really good at passing,” Graver explained. “And then she has this child whose body doesn’t allow her to do any of that, but who is also fiercely determined and passionate and smart. In the interplay, they reveal each other through their different points of view.”
The book arrives at a time of renewed interest in Sephardic culture, and part of its appeal is that it is telling what to many American Jewish readers, fed a steady diet of the Ashkenazi experience, a fresh story.
Kantika” is also a migration story, another genre that is very much of the moment. Graver herself teaches the genre, which includes works by Korean-American author Min Jee Lee, Haitian-American Edwidge Danticat and Vietnamese-American Viet Thanh Nguyen.
I asked Graver if she was conscious of genre when she was writing the book, and wary of the way a sprawling family novel like hers might be received.
“I don’t even like the term ‘family saga,’” said Graver, who, when I asked, wasn’t familiar with Plain or Goldreich. “It makes me wince, even though I suppose I have written one and I’m indebted to them in various ways. But I want the characters to be flawed and complex and for the turns that they take to come out of their intersections with both history and their own very particular circumstances. I think about big novels where there is a big social canvas and it’s not a story of triumph.”
Indeed, “Kantika,” unlike many novels of Jewish migration, is actually a story about a family’s economic decline. Ultimately, said Graver, she wanted to capture the story of her Sephardic family’s journey in all its complexity.
“I have a deep anxiety about being overly sentimental and wrapping things up too much,” said Graver. “I love fiction that gestures towards the complexity of real life.”
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The post A novel of Sephardic life revives the Jewish family saga appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Striking Back: Iran Has Been at War with America for 46 Years
Aftermath of the bombing of the US Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, October 1983. (Photo: Screenshot)
President Donald Trump ran on a platform to end wars, including Ukraine, Gaza, and the Red Sea. He offered Iran multiple opportunities to negotiate a better future.
If people didn’t want to eliminate the Houthi threat that affected our USCENTCOM allies Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, as well as Israel, that’s OK. If they insisted upfront that American “boots” didn’t belong anywhere in the region, that’s OK. If they didn’t want the US to cooperate with our CENTCOM partner, Israel, OK fine. That’s their opinion.
But if they thought the Iranian regime was not at war with the US, so there was no need to bother them in their pursuit of the destruction of Israel or spread of terrorism — or if they thought Iran’s unbridled nuclear weapons capability only threatened Israel — they are on another planet.
Ilhan Omar, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Hakeem Jeffries, Ed Markey, Amy Klobuchar, Antonio Guterrez, and more are all out of touch with reality and reason.
Think of it this way: Donald Trump just avenged more than 1,000 American service personnel killed, and thousands wounded and held hostage by Iran since the mullahs declared war on us in 1979.
Don’t forget them.
We are Iran’s “Great Satan” to Israel’s “Little Satan.”
“Student activists” in Tehran occupied the US embassy in 1979 and held Americans hostage for 444 days. The Americans were paraded through the streets blindfolded. Six managed to escape with the help of our Canadian allies — remember Argo?
In 1983, Iran bragged about the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 220 US Marines, 21 other US servicemembers, and 58 French soldiers.
Israel’s pager attack on Hezbollah in September 2024 eliminated the masterminds of the attack – who had been on the FBI Most Wanted list for 41 years.
In 1984, Iran’s proxy Hezbollah kidnapped, tortured, and killed CIA Station Chief William Francis Buckley, whose identity they apparently learned from classified documents seized from the embassy in Tehran. Buckley was transferred to Iran and tortured there, before being returned to Lebanon.
In 1985, US Navy diver Robert Stethem was beaten and kicked to death before his body was dumped on the tarmac by Hezbollah in Beirut. In 1988, Hezbollah kidnapped Colonel William R. Higgins and tortured him for months. Former FBI agent Robert Levinson was presumed kidnapped by Iran in 2007 and killed; his body has not been recovered.
In 1996, an explosion at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia killed 19 American servicemembers.
In 2011, there was an Iranian plot to kill a Saudi diplomat in Washington, D.C., and to attack the Israeli and Saudi embassies. That year, too, Iran began to take steps to mine the Persian Gulf.
US Naval Intelligence shows Iranian warships have been in the Red Sea — where Iran has no border — since 2011. Part of Iran’s support for the Houthi rebellion in Yemen can be explained because it’s near the US Expeditionary Force base in Djibouti, close to the Straits of Hormuz. Iran provides missiles and training to the Houthis.
In 2012, chairman of the Iranian chiefs of staff, Hassan Firuzabadi, said, “We do have the plan to close the Strait of Hormuz, since a member of the military must plan for all scenarios.”
Iranian war games in 2015 were designed against American forces and included passing skills along to proxy forces. Beginning in 2016, swarms of Iranian fast boats harassed American ships and others in the Persian Gulf, engaging in what the commander of the US Central Command called “unsafe maneuvers.”
Iran captured American sailors and released video footage of them — a violation of their rights under the Geneva Convention.
In 2018, US intelligence revealed that Iran was responsible for more than 600 American military deaths in Iraq and thousands wounded by Iranian IEDs in Iraq. In 2024, three military contractors working in Jordan were killed in a drone attack and 40 others were injured. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias, claimed responsibility.
If you still think the US is just fine; protected by two oceans and friendly neighbors, and doesn’t have to care about freedom of navigation, trade routes, oil exports, China, Russia, or North Korean missile and nuclear weapons capability, that’s OK, too.
Wait.
No, it isn’t.
Peace is always good; peace is always important. But real peace does not consist of “turning the other cheek” while your enemy gets stronger. It is the outgrowth of strong and measured American cooperation with regional partners — in Europe, in Asia and in the Middle East — to ensure that malevolent actors don’t have an opportunity to ruin the system of international travel and commerce or to impose their vision of “peace” on the unwilling. Or to commit genocide.
Ensuring that Iran does not have nuclear weapons is a crucial step in that direction. And avenging American servicemembers across countries and decades counts as well.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly magazine.
The post Striking Back: Iran Has Been at War with America for 46 Years first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Supports Students Through Plan to Dismantle Department of Education
US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon smiles during the signing event for an executive order to shut down the Department of Education next to US President Donald Trump, in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
My parents were born in the Soviet Union, where antisemitism was not only tolerated — it was enforced.
They grew up in a system that erased Jewish identity, restricted Jewish education, and shut Jews out of opportunities. My father didn’t even know he was Jewish until he was seven years old, because acknowledging that fact could have endangered his family.
When my parents immigrated to the United States, they had no money, spoke no English, and had no connections. What they did have was hope — hope that in America, their children would be free to live as Jews without fear. They believed this country would offer what the USSR never could: freedom of religion, opportunity through education, and protection under the law. That promise now feels under threat.
As a Jewish student preparing for college, I see antisemitism growing in plain sight — particularly on college campuses. And the very institutions that are supposed to keep students safe, inclusive, and informed are failing. Among them is the US Department of Education. With over 4,000 employees and an annual budget exceeding $80 billion, it has proven largely unable — or unwilling — to address the rising hatred directed at Jewish students.
President Trump’s decision to eliminate the Department of Education is not simply justified — it is needed. The Department has become a bloated bureaucracy that fails to serve students, wastes public resources, and actively promotes policies that marginalize people like me.
A major part of the Department’s role under the Biden administration was enforcing and promoting DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) frameworks. While these programs claim to protect vulnerable groups, they have frequently excluded Jews.
A 2023 Anti-Defamation League (ADL) survey found that 55% of Jewish students felt DEI policies ignored or diminished their concerns. Jews are too often viewed as “privileged” and therefore excluded from the very protections afforded to others. This is not inclusion — it is erasure.
Until last year, these DEI-driven admissions policies even worked against Jewish applicants. Colleges, under the disguise of achieving “equity,” could penalize students for their ethnic and religious background. It took a Supreme Court ruling to stop this. The Department of Education, meanwhile, allowed it to happen for years.
President Trump’s current efforts to dismantle DEI programs are necessary, but as long as the Department of Education exists, these policies could be revived under future administrations. Eliminating the Department altogether is the only way to end the cycle and protect Jewish students long-term.
The Department has also failed in one of its most basic responsibilities — protecting students from discrimination. Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, antisemitism on college campuses has surged by over 700%, according to the ADL. Jewish students have been harassed, threatened, and physically assaulted. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits such discrimination in federally funded institutions. Yet the Department of Education has done little more than issue vague statements. No meaningful enforcement and no consequences.
President Trump, in contrast, has acted. His administration withdrew $2.2 billion in Federal funding from Harvard and $400 million from Columbia University due to their failure to protect Jewish students. These measures had immediate impact — protests that had turned hostile and violent were shut down, and schools implemented stronger safety policies.
This is not the first time President Trump has taken meaningful action to protect Jewish students. In his first term, Trump expanded Title VI to include antisemitism as a protected class under Federal civil rights law. That was a historic move — one the Department should have made long ago. Instead, it remained inactive while anti-Jewish hate festered.
Beyond civil rights, the Department has proven ineffective in advancing education itself. A 2024 Government Accountability Office report found that only 10% of its staff contribute to direct classroom support. The remaining 90% are engaged in regulatory compliance and administrative functions — layers of bureaucracy that cost billions and deliver little.
One area where this failure is especially dangerous is Holocaust education. Only 18 states require it in public schools, and even where it is required, the instruction is often shallow or optional. A 2020 Claims Conference survey revealed that 63% of young Americans did not know six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and over one-third believed the death toll was exaggerated. This ignorance enables dangerous ideas to spread, and the Department of Education has done little to correct it.
Eliminating the Department of Education would free states to design education systems that meet the real needs of their students — systems with meaningful education, fair admissions, and real protections for Jewish students.
Gregory Lyakhov is the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the United States. He is a columnist for both Townhall Media and Newsmax, where his bold commentary has earned national recognition. His writing regularly appears in major publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and several prominent Jewish outlets.
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The 5 Biggest Miscalculations the Iranian Regime Made
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber takes off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam January 11, 2018. Picture taken January 11, 2018. U.S. Air Force/Airman 1st Class Gerald Willis/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran surprised some. Here are the five main miscalculations the Iranian regime made that led to this point. The Iranian regime has seen its miscalculations surface in layers, like the peeling of an onion. Though no one can predict the future and some things remain unclear, it is important to examine five mistakes.
1. Iran’s leaders thought Trump was bluffing and wouldn’t attack directly.
President Trump was not lying when he said he didn’t want to start new wars. Perhaps military action could have been prevented if Iran’s leaders offered inspections, negotiated in good faith, and were ready to seriously constrict uranium enrichment.
Many news reports and podcasts made the regime think the isolationist wing of Trump’s power base had his ear, and the public would fear attacks on US servicemen in the region so much it would be too costly to attack. Trump did kill General Qassem Soleimani in his first term, but he didn’t go further. The stealth B-2 bombers that dropped the huge bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities cost more than $2 billion each, and the regime may have thought Trump would be risk averse to seeing them shot down. While it is extremely difficult to take down B-2 planes, seeing that no Israeli planes were shot down and Iran’s defenses were weakened likely emboldened Trump.
2. Iran’s leaders thought proxies and “allies” would make them bulletproof.
With the well-armed Hezbollah, the Houthis disrupting shipping routes, Hamas in Gaza, and Iranian proxy forces in Syria, Tehran thought Israel and the US would be too scared to attack it directly.
Iran never imagined Hezbollah’s power would be reduced so quickly, it did not expect the Syrian government to fall in the way that it did, and it did not expect to see Hamas and the Houthis so weakened. The Iranian regime, which assisted Russia in its war against Ukraine with drones, and provides a huge amount of oil to China, also imagined the potential threat of Russia or China coming to its aid might scare off any significant attack. There remains a possibility that China, North Korea, or Russia could get involved militarily — but it is unlikely. More likely the Houthis will resume firing missiles.
3. Iran misunderstood the larger ramifications of the attacks of October 7.
Seeing great schisms in Israel over the judicial reform issue, Iran hoped Israel would implode after October 7 — or at the very least, see the ousting of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran likely believed that the information and PR campaign against Israel — falsely calling it a genocidal entity — would weaken it and make Israel too afraid to make bold moves. Instead, it made the Israeli public united on the need to take the threat of Iran seriously and be more proactive.
4. Iran underestimated the Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel’s security services.
It was a huge blow that Israel, said to have the best security services in the world, did not know Hamas was going to attack when it did on October 7, 2023.
But for the Mossad to be able to not only kill numerous Iranian generals at the same time, but deploy drones and other equipment on Iranian soil likely took the regime (and the level of infiltration Israel has achieved) by surprise. Iran not only underestimated the Mossad’s ability, but it likely didn’t understand its brutality against its citizens would allow the Mossad to get Iranian assets so consistently on the ground.
5. Iran though Israel’s muted response in 2024 meant it would not be more aggressive.
In April and October of 2024, Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel. The Jewish State responded by weakening Iran’s air defenses, but it did not go after any major installations. It is quite possible that the regime felt that since Israel did not become more aggressive, it was a sign that the Jewish State wouldn’t risk a major direct attack. But as we’ve seen, they were very, very wrong.
The author is a writer based in New York.
The post The 5 Biggest Miscalculations the Iranian Regime Made first appeared on Algemeiner.com.