Join Wendy Thowdis as she leads us in this Hybrid session (Zoom link is in the weekly HaMadrich or email admin@emeth.net for details. Kantika: a Novel by Elizabeth Graver All are invited to join us at the temple or on zoom. A dazzling Sephardic multigenerational saga that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana, and New York, exploring displacement, endurance, and family as home. A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family’s displacement across four countries, Kantika―“song” in Ladino―follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way―a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba to New York for an arranged second marriage, she faces her greatest challenge―her disabled stepdaughter, Luna, whose feistiness equals her own and whose challenges pit new family against old.

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award Named a Best Historical Fiction Book and a Notable Book of 2023 by The New York Times Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Lilith, and Libby New York Times, Editors’ Choice & 100 Notable Books of 2023