Author Ayelet Tsabari brings us her latest masterpiece of writing in Songs for the Brokenhearted. Though the voice may sound similar to her nonfiction book, The Art of Leaving with essays about her family and their lives as Yemeni Jews in Israel, this time she has fictionalized the storyline.
It is critical that we read books by Israeli and Jewish authors both to give them a voice and for the powerful message we send that these books are important. But it is also amazing to read books written by Israeli and Jewish authors because they always teach us something new, some new historic knowledge or a new perspective on news that we grew up with but may not have looked back at lately.
Songs for the Brokenhearted does all of that and more. This is the story of many Yemeni Jews immigrating to Israel in the 1950s living in an overcrowded immigrant camp in Rosh HaAyin. They are living under harsh conditions, not accepted by the Israelis as full citizens, looking for work and learning a new language. Following the narrative of Yaqub, a shy young man who is trying to find his promised golden future we learn about how hard it was for these immigrants to get settled. He meets the beautiful Saida in the camp but his love for her cannot be acted upon because she is already married.
Then we meet Zohara, a young thirty year old woman who is returning to Israel from New York, for her mother’s funeral. Zohara is at loose ends, confused, angry and not sure she is following the path she really wants. She had left to study in the United States and felt she had escaped the life of poverty and embarrassment of having an illiterate Yemeni mother. Growing up surrounded by Ashkenizi she always wished her skin was lighter and that her father was still alive.
Coming back now to Israel and trying to get along with her older sister, Lizzie, who Zohara thinks does not understand her, she finds she may have been wrong about quite a few things. . She may have misunderstood her mother and the relationship her parents had. She finds out her mother was a beautiful singer of Yemeni women’s songs. This is an important part of the Yemeni culture that Tsabari weaves throughout the narrative.
Tsabari also brings in a little known harsh historic fact that nurses in the camps were taking Yemeni children away from their families and giving them up for adoption. They were telling the parents their children had gotten sick, were taken to a hospital and then the nurses told the parents the child had died.
Also setting Zohara’s story in 1995 the historic events of the Oslo Accords and the association of Yizak Rabin plays a large role in this novel. Zohara’s nephew, Yoni gets caught up with a group of Israeli reactionary young men who attend rallies and protests. Tsabari sets out viewpoints from the different sides of the political argument around peace in the Mideast during this time period.
The book is beautifully written about a very emotional time in everyone’s life when a loved one’s life ends and you not only re-evaluate yourself and your relationship to that person, but also find out secrets about their lives. The book follows multiple romantic plot lines and also the relationship between sisters, and friends. It is interesting to read about historical facts that have led to where Israel and its neighbors are now. A time when a hope for peace in the Mideast was really thought to be an imminent possibility.
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