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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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ADL Research: 24% of Americans Believe Recent Violence Against Jews Is ‘Understandable’
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim who were shot and killed as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, pose for a picture at an unknown location, in this handout image released by Embassy of Israel to the US on May 22, 2025. Photo: Embassy of Israel to the USA via X/Handout via REUTERS
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a report on Friday revealing American attitudes about antisemitic violence following the targeted attacks earlier this year against Jews in Boulder, Colo., Harrisburg, Pa., and Washington, D.C. The watchdog group found a sizable minority (24 percent) found the attacks “understandable” while 13 percent regarded them as “justified.”
The ADL surveyed a representative sample of 1000 Americans on Thursday, ensuring the group matched accurate proportions of the country’s demography. The findings showed disparate views across age groups and partisan affiliations while also a clear, majority consensus on many questions.
The survey showed that 87 percent of respondents believed the three recent antisemitic attacks to be unjustifiable while 85 percent called them morally wrong and 77 percent assessed them as antisemitic. Eighty-six percent regarded the violence against Jews as hate crimes. However, nearly a quarter of respondents said the attacks were “understandable.”
More Republicans (15 percent) than Democrats (11 percent) regarded the attacks as justified, while more Republicans (79 percent) than Democrats (77 percent) saw the attacks as antisemitic. Partisan differences also manifested in support for increased government action against antisemitism with 74 percent of Republicans in favor compared to 81 percent of Democrats.
In presenting their research findings, the ADL emphasized the broad agreement in American opposition to antisemitic violence and conspiracist tropes before noting the presence of a distinct minority of “millions of people who excuse or endorse violence against Jews—an alarming sign of how anti-Jewish narratives are spreading.” For example, 67 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of Republicans agree that antisemitism is a serious problem.
Smaller numbers among the Democrats (25 percent) and Republicans (23 percent) will acknowledge antisemitism as a concern in their own party. The ADL poll suggests the legitimacy of such suspicions, finding that “28 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of Democrats agreed with tropes such as Jews have too much influence in politics and media.”
Partisan affiliations correlated with where respondents saw the most significant antisemitic threats. Republicans expressed a 3.6 times greater likelihood of worries about left-wing antisemitism compared to Democrats who were 4.4 times as likely to focus on right-wing antisemitism.
The pollsters found that attitudes toward the severity of the antisemitic threat differed according to age.
While 80 percent of silent generation respondents saw antisemitism as a serious problem, that number fell to 65 percent for baby boomers and members of Generation X. The rates dropped again for millennials (52 percent) and Gen-Zers (55 percent).
Perceptions of antisemitism in local communities also differed by generation. While 19 percent of Americans overall report having witnessed antisemitism in their communities, that figure jumps to 33 percent for Gen-Zers and 20 percent for millennials. Among the boomers it drops to 10 percent and for Silent Generation respondents it reaches 17 percent.
Large numbers saw the threat of popular protest slogans “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea” with 68 percent seeing the phrases as potentially fueling violence, a view held even among 54 percent of those who favor protests against Israel.
Researchers also observed a correlation between Israel support and perceiving the seriousness of antisemitism in America. While 74 percent of those favorable to Israel saw domestic antisemitism as significant, only 57 percent of those with negative views of the Jewish state agreed.
Nearly a quarter of those polled—24 percent—expressed the conspiratorial view that some group had staged the attacks to provoke sympathy for Israel. A second report also released by the ADL on Friday showed the rise in discussions of “false flag” attacks on the Reddit website in response to the antisemitic violence.
The ADL warned that “these beliefs are especially dangerous because they justify holding Jewish Americans responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, effectively viewing them as collectively responsible for international politics—making them greater targets.”
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Sen. Bernie Sanders Calls on Democrats to Stop Accepting Money From AIPAC
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to the media following a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, US, July 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), took to X/Twitter on Monday to call on all Democrats to stop accepting political donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the influential pro‑Israel lobbying entity.
In his tweet, Sanders wrote that AIPAC has aided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in waging an “illegal and immoral war being waged against the Palestinian people.” Sanders continued, claiming that “NO Democrat should accept money from AIPAC” while asserting that the organization helped “deliver the presidency to Donald Trump.”
Sanders’s post came in response to comments by former Obama administration foreign policy advisor Ben Rhodes, in which Rhodes urged Democrats to reject all future donations from AIPAC. Rhodes argued that AIPAC has influenced Democrats to take immoral stances on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“AIPAC is part of the constellation of forces that has delivered this country into the hands of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, and you cannot give them a carve out,” Rhodes said on an episode of the podcast Pod Save the World. “We need to have this fight as a party, because these are the wrong people to have under your tent.”
Tommy Vietor, another former Obama administration official and podcast co-host, agreed, accusing AIPAC of “funneling money to front organizations that primary progressive Democrats.”
AIPAC, the foremost pro-Israel lobbying firm in the US, has historically backed pro-Israel candidates from both parties. The organization does not specifically lobby against progressive candidates. AIPAC has aided the campaigns of pro-Israel progressives such as Ritchie Torres.
Sanders has long held an acrimonious relationship with AIPAC. In November 2023, he repudiated the group for supposedly having”supported dozens of GOP extremists who are undermining our democracy,” and urged his fellow Democrats to stand together in the fight for a world of peace, economic and social justice and climate sanity.”
Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser under President Obama, has emerged as a vocal critic of Israeli policy, particularly under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His skepticism is rooted in years of diplomatic frustration during the Obama administration, especially surrounding failed peace negotiations and Israel’s settlement expansions in the West Bank. Rhodes has often framed Israel’s hardline stance as a major obstacle to a two-state solution, and he has been critical of what he sees as unconditional U.S. support that enables right-wing Israeli policies. His stance reflects a broader shift among some American progressives who advocate for a more balanced U.S. approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sanders has long been a staunch critic of the Jewish state. Sanders has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “collective punishment” and “apartheid” against the Palestinian people. Although the senator initially condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel by Hamas, he subsequently pushed for a “ceasefire” between the Jewish state and the terrorist group. Sanders also spearheaded an unsuccessful campaign to implement a partial arms embargo on Israel in 2024.
In the 20 months following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, relations between the Democratic party and the Jewish state have deteriorated. Democratic lawmakers have grown more vocally critical of Israel’s military conduct in Gaza, sometimes arguing that the Jewish state has recklessly endangered lives of Palestinian civilians. Moreover, polls indicate that Democratic voters have largely turned against Israel, intensifying pressure on liberal lawmakers to shift their tone regarding the war in Gaza.
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Iranian National Charged in Plot to Subvert US Sanctions Against Islamic Republic
Iranians participating in a memorial ceremony for IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists in downtown Tehran, Iran, on July 2, 2025. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect.
Federal law enforcement officials have arrested an Iranian national after uncovering his alleged conspiracy to export US technology to Tehran in violation of a slew of economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday.
For May 2018 to July 2025, Bahram Mohammad Ostovari, 66, allegedly amassed “railway signaling and telecommunications systems” for transport to the Iranian government by using “two front companies” located in the United Arab Emirates. After filing fake orders for them with US vendors at Ostovari’s direction, the companies shipped the materials — which included “sophisticated computer processors” — to Tehran, having duped the US businesses into believing that they “were the end users.”
The Justice Department continued, “After he became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in May 2020, Ostovari continued to export, sell, and supply electronics and electrical components to [his company] in Iran,” noting that the technology became components of infrastructure projects commissioned by the Islamic Republic.
Ostovari has been charged with four criminal counts for allegedly violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), under which conducting business with Iran is proscribed due to the country’s human rights abuses, material support for terrorism, and efforts to build a larger-scale nuclear program in violation of international non-proliferation obligations. Each count carries a 20-year maximum sentence in federal prison.
Ostovari is one of several Iranian nationals to become the subject of criminal proceedings involving crimes against the US this year.
In April, a resident of Great Falls, Virginia — Abouzar Rahmati, 42 — pleaded guilty to collecting intelligence on US infrastructure and providing it to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“From at least December 2017 through June 2024, Rahmati worked with Iranian government officials and intelligence operatives to act on their behalf in the United States, including by meeting with Iranian intelligence officers and government officials using a cover story to hide his conduct,” the Justice Department said at the time, noting that Rahmati even infiltrated a contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that possesses “sensitive non-public information about the US aviation sector.”
Throughout the duration of his cover, Rahmati amassed “open-source and non-public materials about the US solar energy industry,” which he delivered to “Iranian intelligence officers.”
The government found that the operation began in August 2017, after Rahmati “offered his services” to a high-ranking Iranian government official who had once been employed by the country’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, according to the Justice Department. Months later, he traveled to Iran, where Iranian agents assigned to him the espionage activity to which he pleaded guilty to perpetrating.
“Rahmati sent additional material relating to solar energy, solar panels, the FAA, US airports, and US air traffic control towers to his brother, who lived in Iran, so that he would provide those files to Iranian intelligence on Rahmati’s behalf,” the Justice Department continued. Rahmati also, it said, delivered 172 gigabytes worth of information related to the National Aerospace System (NAS) — which monitors US airspace, ensuring its safety for aircraft — and NAS Airport Surveillance to Iran during a trip he took there.
Rahmati faces up to 10 years in prison. He will be sentenced in August.
In November, three Iranian intelligence assets were charged with contriving a conspiracy to assassinate critics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as then US President-elect Donald Trump.
According to the Justice Department, Farhad Shakeri, 51; Carlisle Rivera, 49; and Jonathan Loadholt, 36, acted at the direction of and with help from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization, to plot to murder a US citizen of Iranian origin in New York. Shakeri, who remains at large and is believed to reside in Iran, was allegedly the principal agent who managed the two other men, both residents of New York City who appeared in court.
Their broader purpose, prosecutors said, was to target nationals of the United States and its allies for attacks, including “assaults, kidnapping, and murder, both to repress and silence critical dissidents” and to exact revenge for the 2020 killing of then-IRGC Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Iraq. Trump was president of the US at the time of the operation.
All three men are now charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy, and money laundering. Shakeri faces additional charges, including violating sanctions against Iran, providing support to a terrorist organization, and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Powers Act, offenses for which he could serve up to six decades in federal prison.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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