S. Khubiar's Blog - Posts Tagged "jewish"

Leaving Iran: A Glimpse Into The Persian Mind by Isaac Yomtovian

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is the best book I've read in a long time. The author divides his life experience into sections, each one building on his earliest experiences and impressions growing up in pre-Revolutionary Iran as a "Jahood." Yomtovian has done a masterful job of bringing both the non-Persian and non-Jew into an ancient, yet little-known or little-celebrated arena of Jewish life. As a writer, I could only hope that my work captures some of his gentle and humorous introduction to Persian life and the adjustments required of American/Persian Jews. Ta'arof? No.

Although other Persian Jewish writers have incorporated Persian customs and Farsi vocabulary in their work, Yomtovian has done the best job of explaining terms to the non-Persian reader either within the text or in his added glossary. At no point does the new information become too much for the non-Persian to assimilate. The chapter describing the showing of The Ten Commandments in Iran was so funny I had to read it to my friends.

For those who think Middle Eastern Jews were treated well by their host countries, this book puts their treatment into proper perspective, yet it demonstrates how one's experiences may be remembered more fondly than reality dictates when those first experiences set the norm in young minds and hearts. The most human thing about the author is that in spite of all the problems he experienced in Iran, he still remembers the culture, art, and shared history fondly.

This book delivers exactly what the title promises: a glimpse into the Persian mind.
Leaving Iran: A Glimpse Into The Persian Mind



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Daniella Levy

Vote on the cover of Daniella Levy's new novel:

https://www.kasvapress.com/light-hidd...

By Light of Hidden Candles

In a mud hut in 16th century Morocco, a dying Jewish woman hands her granddaughter a heavy gold ring — and an even heavier secret. Five hundred years later, Alma Ben-Ami journeys to Madrid to fulfill her ancestor’s dying wish. She has recruited an unlikely research partner: Manuel Aguilar, a Catholic Spaniard whose priest had warned him about getting too friendly with Jews. As their quest takes them from Manhattan to the windswept mountain fortresses of southern Spain, their friendship deepens and threatens to cross boundaries sacred to them both; and what they finally discover in the Spanish archives will force them to confront the truth about who they are and what their faiths mean to them.

What’s the best thing about being a writer? was the Goodreads question of the day.

I once read that imagination is man's most God-like quality. Novels are just those backyards where writers go to play with our imaginary friends. When I write, I can create friends that I like or don't like. Friends that make it hard to be their friend. I decide when they've gone far enough, or if I want, I can make them go farther. Friends like me. Friends totally unlike me. Enemies that I like, and enemies that I hate. Redeemable enemies, and those who must be eliminated. Readers who like my friends and my enemies are invited to join me in the backyard.

Maybe I'll order a coffee for Samuel today. He's in a lot of trouble for getting into a fight on Shabbat ;)

Just finished working out, and I'm sitting here (sweating) with a cup of amaretto and a vegan spelt cookie at the coffee shop.

I'm working on a short story of Samuel's "coming of age" in 7th grade. I feel like the tone is off, but I'm trying to tell it through the perceptions of a young "tween." I think it reads like a bad imitation of To Kill a Mockingbird, and it feels funny being "up front" with the reader. Most of the time I'm only half revealing to preserve suspense tone and plot surprises. I think the turning point in the story will center around a can of Eagle Brand milk, not a mockingbird. While Scout and Jem had to face racism, Samuel is struggling with Texas-style anti-Semitism. Why isn't there an eagle on the label of Eagle Brand milk, only a smiling, benevolent cow?

Although this quote is a little out of context as it relates to writing Jewish fiction, I do feel the need for "spiritual heroism" in writing even fiction.

"The realization that a decline in the moral state impedes the flowering of literature is a feeling unique to the Jewish people. Only we realize in truth that in order to improve the quality of literature, there is a necessary prerequisite, that the writers first cleanse their souls. We feel in ourselves the great need for penitence so that we might rise to the sublime heights of the noble literature that is uniquely ours, that stems from the wisdom of Israel, whose source is holiness and purity, faith and spiritual heroism." Kook, Lights of Penitence, p. 118.