BOOKS 2021-a #Carmel

Isabel is a descendant of the Martians in the town of Belmonte in northern Portugal, a town that for centuries managed to secretly preserve its Jewishness and Jewish customs until it was discovered in 1917 by the Polish Jewish engineer Shmuel Schwartz.

Why all the hassle, all this madness, I ask myself, for a few more shekels, for another random girl? Years ago - a few years ago I do not remember exactly - I had dreams of a vocation

A great mystery accompanies the lives of the novel's protagonists: Anat - a high school literature teacher, and Shalom - the school minister.

At the end of her life, a whole doula from his mother's mouths are unknown chapters and the sources of her family's many upheavals. He learns about the hair-raising adventures of his ancestors in the deserts of Iraq, about forbidden love affairs among his family members and about the survival tests of his parents in both Iraq and Israel. During the journey to the ancient past of his family, the life of the narrator himself, a divorced man and father of two, unfolds.