The Anatomy of Exile by Zeeva Bukai; Santa Monica, California: Delphinium Books; © 2025; ISBN 9781953-002464; 313 pages; $28.
SAN DIEGO – Love affairs between Arabs and Jews seldom turn out well. In this debut novel by an Israeli Jewish writer, such an affair ends as badly as that between Shakespeare’s fictional Romeo and Juliet.
Tragedy befell Hadas Abadi and her lover Daoud Hamid at a secret rendezvous spot just outside Tel Aviv. After Hadas’ grieving brother Salim moved his family to Brooklyn, in the naive expectation that in America he would soon become a wealthy man, his daughter, Ruby, fell in love with Faisal Mahmoudi, the son of an Arab family from Jaffa who moved to the same apartment complex.
Neither family approved of Ruby’s and Faisal’s budding relationship. What began as a teenage crush on Faisal grew so serious that he and Ruby were willing to defy their parents.
The story is told from the point of view of Tamar, wife of Salim and mother to Ruby, Rachel and Ari. There is a undercurrent of ethnic tension between Tamar and Salim. He is an Arabic-speaking Jew from Syria; she is an Ashkenazi Jew with Eastern European roots. Although she is subservient to him in their marriage – at least to start with – he has felt the sting of Ashkenazi condescension for his Mizrachi people. He is more comfortable talking with Arab neighbors than with fellow Jews.
The plot, seasoned with infidelity, moves between New York and Israel.
The message of author Zeeva Bukai seems to be one of regret: that young lovers, heedless of society’s built-in prejudices, find that all too often, contrary to the adage, love does not conquer all.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.