To Die in Secret, is the newest work of Haviva ner David. Reading this novel after October 7th makes me wonder how it would be different if the author, an American Israeli, would have changed things with the information she has now.
This novel brings us to the home of Jude, dead with her son in their large farmhouse in a town outside of Salem Massachusetts. Nomi the younger sister is flying home from a kibbutz for the first time in forty years. She ran away from home after fighting with her parents and never came back.
Nomi has lost her Israeli husband and her mother is a dementia patient in a local nursing home. Jude left everything to Nomi. She comes "home" to settle affairs, thinking she will return to the kibbutz. Though she has never really felt at home there, she is cautious about coming back to Massachusetts.
As she finds out what her sister has been doing for the last forty years, helping others and making amends with the mother who was so unkind, Nomi starts to see that she could also make a difference for others and maybe come to terms with the anger, fear and unhappiness that has followed for her adult life.
This is a story of finding yourself, doing mitzvot and forgiveness, and finding a way to closure and moving forward. Hope and faith can be wonderful ways to find peace.
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