Songs for the Brokenhearted
By Ayelet Tsabari (Random House)

Ayelet Tsabari’s debut novel, Songs for the Brokenhearted, is a richly layered tale of family, love and identity. It’s also a long, meaty read, but one that should be savored to fully appreciate the prose and multiple narratives.

Braiding together two storylines, one that starts in 1950 with the rescue of Yemenite Jews as part of Operation Magic Carpet and a second set in the mid-1990s in a tumultuous Israel debating the Oslo Accords, Tsabari creates a cohesive plot with clear storytelling and compelling characters.

In 1950, thousands of Yemenite Jews were airlifted to Israel in search of freedom from persecution and a better life. Among them are Saida, who loves singing, and Yaqub. The two meet in the overcrowded Rosh Ha’ayin refugee camp and fall in love. However, Saida is already married to an older man with whom she has a child, and the affair has disastrous consequences.

In 1995, Saida’s daughter, Zohara, who has moved to New York City, finds herself back in Israel after her sister, Lizzie, calls with the news that their mother has died.

Life in Israel never felt easy to Zohara. Her skin was too dark, her family too poor and her mother’s traditional music embarrassing. Returning in 1995, she still feels awkward. Her relationship with her sister is strained, and she’s worried about her nephew Yoni’s involvement with right-wing groups protesting Oslo. She also renews her friendship with her childhood friend Nir, despite her discomfort with his embrace of their shared Yemenite heritage.

When Zohara discovers cassette tapes of her mother singing traditional Yemenite songs and an envelope filled with handwritten stories of the past, Zohara realizes that there is much about her mother that she never knew. Soon, she finds herself wanting to uncover more about her mother, who was “more complicated than I had given her credit for, filled with contradictions. A woman who was content with her role…but also committed the worst crime a woman of her generation and culture could have committed: falling in love, having an affair, wanting, desiring, dreaming.”

Tsabari has crafted a beautiful, complex story about internalized racism, religious-secular tensions and the connections that tie one to the past. She captures Israel at two different yet equally fraught eras, placing the overarching personal stories deftly in both. 

Jaime Herndon is a writer and avid reader. Her work can be found at Book Riot, Kveller and other places.