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Elizabeth Graver

Elizabeth Graver Books

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Kantika

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“THe church is full of flowers-yellow roses, lilies, blue hydrangeas spilling forth-and it is on these that Charlie trains his gaze and looks for his mother, who is nowhere to be found. Not even her ashes are in the church, and no coffin, but this is less hard to comprehend than the fact that she is not herself there, a thin old bird, an egret maybe, standing on one leg, head bobbing, long neck swiveling. Contradicting, adding and subtracting. poking fun. Peering out.”

DyingMomBirdsEgret
Book:The End of the Point
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“Ken sos tu? I am Rebecca (Rivka, Rebekah) from my mother’s mother and the wife of Isaac in the Bible. The name means “to tie firmly” or “to snare,” which is why—or so her mother used to tell her when she struggled at sewing—she could, with practice, become skilled with a needle and thread. I am Camayor, from my mother’s father, Behor Camayor of blessed memory, and also Cohen, high priests descended from the sons of Aaron, a name she feels she must live up to, though she’ll hide it as needed and may God forgive her. I am from the pomegranate tree my father planted at my birth, from my nuns in white habits, my staircase with the worn ninth tread, the candlelight reflected in my fingernails. I am a gypsy girl, because to have no home place had once seemed romantic and she could do the dance, just as she could climb ropes at gymnastics, rising and lowering at will. Or was it actually that home, back then, was everywhere?”

Jewish HistoryJewish IdentitySephardicLadino
Book:Kantika
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“Where are you going, where have you been? Do you have children? How was the voyage? What is the news of the world? What can I do for you? Please, sit. Eat. She’ll give them the name of Villa Erna, the pension on Carrer del Modolell run by a Jewish family, and Café Cómico, where the Sephardim can learn about jobs, and for the Ashkenazim, the corner café on Còrsega, where they might find Yiddish speakers. Tell them you’ve been to us, she says warmly. Say you’re a friend of a friend.”

BarcelonaSultanaSephardic
Book:Kantika
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