Review of ‘Saving Abigail’ by Liz Hirsh Naftali

When Hamas attacked Israel in the early morning hours of October 7, 2023, one of the hardest hit communities was Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Nukhba Force terrorists smashed through the border fence and launched a murderous rampage, going from house to house and killing, raping, and abducting civilians. Smadar and Roee Mor Idan were murdered in their home. Two of their children survived the attack by hiding inside a closet for 14 hours. Three-year-old Abigail was taken hostage by Hamas.

Spoiler alert: Abigail, the youngest U.S. citizen held by Hamas, was released in November, after 51 days of captivity in Gaza. Another spoiler alert: As of this writing, 97 hostages remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Saving Abigail: The True Story of the Abduction and Rescue of a Three-Year-Old Hostage by Liz Hirsh Naftali (Post Hill Press, September 9, 2024) details the author’s efforts, alongside others, to rescue Abigail and free the remaining hostages.

Hirsh Naftali, Abigail’s great aunt, happened to be in the country on that tragic October morning. The losses in her family hit hard, but she quickly realized there was something she could do. “I could tell people what had happened. I could let people know what Hamas had done to my family in Kfar Aza, and to the entire country,” she writes in the book.

With no prior knowledge or plan how to rescue a hostage from captivity, she set out to share her niece’s face and story, to not only bring awareness of the hostages’ plight, but to encourage American politicians and world leaders to increase diplomatic pressure on Hamas to release their prisoners.

“Practically speaking, I had no idea how to move the entire American federal government in the midst of an unprecedented geopolitical mess,” she writes. But “America still cared about its people, and when it focused its full powers towards a specific objective, it could make big things happen.”

Hirsh Naftali had an advantage over others who lost family members on October 7^th. She had connections with leading American politicians, many of whom she seemingly had on speed dial. She began calling and meeting with congressional and world leaders, including President Joe Biden.

The extensive name dropping on the pages of the book can be overwhelming, especially to those unfamiliar with American politics. However, with all her connections, Hirsh Naftali could not guarantee Abigail’s release.

“Freeing Abigail seemed an insanely ambitious goal most of the time,” Hirsh Naftali writes. “She was part of events far bigger than the kidnapping and captivity of one tiny three-year-old child.”

Abigail was among the group of hostages released back to Israel during a temporary truce. The second half of the book details the author’s continued advocacy for the release of the other hostages. While they remain captive in Gaza at this time, it is important to know that there are those who fight for their release every day, and this book’s author is one of them.

Liz Hirsh Naftali is an investor, philanthropist, and the host and creator of The Capitol Coffee Connection podcast. She is the mother of five children and has lived between Israel and the US since 1992.

Originally posted on The Times of Israel.

Meet the Author Podcast

In September 2024, I had the opportunity to speak about my life, my writing, and my books with Rob & Joan from the Meet the Author Podcast.

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Don't Judge a Book by Its (Tablet) Cover

At 6:30 in the morning on Wednesday, September 25th, sirens went off, warning of an impending rocket attack on Tel Aviv. Along with the other passengers on the train that had departed from Modi’in half an hour earlier, I lay on the floor. The train slowed as it neared the Tel Aviv University Station. When it came to a stop, I rushed off and took shelter in the arrival hall below the tracks.

It was the first time that a missile fired by Hezbollah came close to striking Tel Aviv in the ongoing and escalating conflict. The IDF Army confirmed it had intercepted the surface-to-surface missile after it was launched from Lebanon. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

I breathed a sigh of relief and hurried toward the station’s exit. As I walked, I adjusted my backpack and found that one of the pouches was unzipped. I felt inside and discovered that my tablet was missing. Maybe in my rush to get off the train I had placed it inside another pouch? Had I had left it on the train?

I need my tablet to read

My journey to work on the early morning train lasts 37 minutes, and I utilize the time to read. That morning, I had been just a chapter or two short of finishing Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari, an excellent novel by a highly talented writer. I was thoroughly enjoying the book and planning to write a very complimentary review. But when I arrived at my office and checked my backpack, I confirmed the fact that I had lost my tablet.

I opened a ticket on the Israel Railways website reporting the loss. I joined several Facebook groups—Lost and Found, Lost and Found in Tel Aviv, and Lost and Found on the Train. I posted a quick note about losing my tablet and provided a brief description. I checked my Facebook feed every hour to see if anyone reported finding it.

A few words about my tablet. It is a very old, outdated Samsung model, dating back to 2013. I only use the tablet for reading. I don’t watch videos on the tablet; I don’t play games. My tablet serves me solely as a digital book.

The most distinguishing feature of the tablet is its black cover. The cover is as old as the device and shows extensive signs of wear and tear. It’s faded and starting to come apart. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a picture of the tablet to post on Facebook.

One of the first thoughts that went through my head was how would I finish the last pages of Tsabari’s novel? I downloaded the Kindle app to my phone and on my return train journey home, I read the ending of the book on a very small screen.

I order a new tablet and then…

A week and a half passed, and I had given up hope of ever seeing my tablet again. I went online and searched for a new tablet to buy. I didn’t want anything fancy, and I certainly didn’t want an Amazon Kindle, a device that continues to frustrate my wife months after she purchased it. I found an affordable model and made the order. The tablet would be ready for pickup at an electronics store down the street from my office the very next day.

And then I got a phone call from Israel Railways.

“Do you have a white tablet?” someone asked me.

I didn't know the color! I couldn't remember ever seeing the tablet without its fraying cover.

“Does it have a start button at the bottom, like an iPhone 4?”

“I don’t know what an iPhone 4 looks like,” I admitted.

Don't judge a digital book by its cover

After work, I went to the Lost and Found department at the Savidor Center Train Station. The clerk couldn’t find a record of having called me that morning, but he did have my report of a missing tablet listed in his files. “Is this one yours?” he said, holding up a huge device.

“My tablet is smaller.”

“What about this one?”

“No, mine is much smaller”

“And this?”

I immediately recognized the tablet by its old black cover. “That’s it!”

As the clerk wrote up his report, I turned on the device. Amazingly, after having gone missing for a week and a half, the battery was at 75%. And the Kindle app opened to the exact page in Songs for the Brokenhearted that I had been reading when the siren went off.

“You seem surprised,” the clerk said.

“I can’t believe that I found it.”

“There are good people in this world,” the clerk said, referring to the honest anonymous train passenger who had turned my tablet into Lost and Found. “And your tablet is a very old model that no one uses anymore.”

No one uses? My tablet had just survived a missile attack and reappeared after disappearing for a week and a half! Even after all these years, it is still a suitable device for reading, especially when it comes to excellent novels like Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari.

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Review of 'Songs for the Brokenhearted' by Ayelet Tsabari

If there’s a soundtrack to Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari (Random House, September 10, 2024), it probably sounds very much like Ofra Haza's ‘Yemenite Songs’ album. Like the album, this outstanding novel is a stage for Yemenite women sharing the traditional, sinuous tunes of a culture where singing is a day-to-day activity.

“You know how it is with Yemeni people. Singing is in our blood,” says one of the characters in the book. “We sing when we clean, we sing when we cook. We sing when we’re happy. We sing when we’re sad. In celebrations. Even in death.”

It is a death that brings Zohara, a 31-year-old PhD candidate, back to Israel. Zohara’s mother, Saida, has died. The two hadn’t always gotten along. ‘Only after I moved to New York had we reached a quiet, dignified truce,’ Zohara tells herself. ‘I finally made it home again. and she wasn’t here.’

Along with her sister Lizzie, Zohara sets out to purchase a gravestone and pack up their mother’s home in the Sha’ariya Yemini neighborhood of Petach Tikva. At the grocery store down the street, Zohara meets Nir, with whom she went to elementary school. Nir’s mother, Yael, introduces her to the sisterhood of women who gather at the community center to sing. As women traditionally play secondary roles in Yemeni households, Zohara ‘started thinking of the women’s songs, that insistence to be heard, as subversive, audacious, feminist even. I liked the idea of the women using their creative expression as a form of protest.’

When she discovers a set of old cassette tapes, the music 'brings Zohara closer to her mother, to understand her more after she died than she did when she was alive.' ‘It made me see my mother in a whole new light.’ Zohara is shocked to learn that her mother not only sang but was also a talented poetess. A woman capable of writing explicit lyrics.

‘If I were grapes strung on a vine, I’d squeeze the flesh of my fruit and pour juice into your mouth’.

At its heart of Songs for the Brokenhearted is a love story. It is the tale of Saida and Yaqub, who first met in an immigrant camp in 1950, shortly after their arrival in Israel. “My heart is full of rain. If it bursts, it might flood the whole time,” Saida sings, and the young girl's beautiful voice captivates Yaqub. “Singing is the one thing that keeps me sane in this place,” she tells him. “I miss the way we sang in Yemen, all the women together.”

Zohara’s discovery of her mother’s musical talents makes her reconsider the subject of her dissertation. She also reexamines her connection with Iggy, a former lover and her current best friend. Or maybe her friendship with Nir can advance to the next level, she wonders.

Tsabari, author of the award-winning The Best Place on Earth short story collection, populates her pages with true to life characters. Zohara’s nephew, Yoni, struggles to find meaning during the politically charged weeks leading up to November 1995. Lizzie’s frustrations with her sister are easily understood, and readers will readily connect with Zohara, as she is drawn closer to her mother and learns more about herself in the process.

You can almost hear Saida singing her original lyrics to traditional Yemenite songs as you read this moving, highly recommended novel.

Ayelet Tsabari’s debut collection of short stories, The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award. Her memoir The Art of Leaving was a finalist for the Writer’s Trust Hilary Weston Prize, and the winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for memoir. She’s the co-editor of the anthology Tongues: On Longing and Belonging Through Language and has taught creative writing at Guelph MFA in Creative Writing and The University of King’s College MFA.

 

Originally posted on The Times of Israel.

Related articles:

Review of 'The Art of Leaving' by Ayelet Tsabari

Review of 'The Best Place on Earth' by Ayelet Tsabari

"Back From the War" - short story

One hundred days after the war began, Roni returned to the office for the first time. Much had changed since the beginning of October—there was a new office manager, the coffee machine had been replaced, and a fancy contraption dispensed freshly squeezed orange juice in the kitchen—but overall, things were just the same. The projects waiting for him were those he had dropped when unexpectedly he was called up for emergency reserve duty, and although his inbox was now bloated with unread emails, it was as if he had never left.

“Roni, welcome back!” Gideon exclaimed, slapping him on his shoulder—a shoulder that ached from having carried a weapon nearly twenty-four hours a day. Gideon sat at the desk across from Roni in the developers’ open space. “How are you doing, my brother?”

“I’m okay,” Roni said, swiveling his chair into position. He pushed aside the welcome-back gift basket, with its “Thank you for your service!” note, expensive bottle of wine, and imported chocolate, and adjusted his computer screen.

“No, really, how are you doing?”

How was he doing? How was anyone doing? He was lying when he said he was okay, but he didn’t want to say anything more. Not to Gideon, whom he rarely saw outside work hours. Not to his boss, Moishe, either, or any of his colleagues. He hadn’t spoken with his parents about what he went through, when he’d visited them the previous Shabbat, so why should he open up now?

Read the rest of the story on The Jewish Fiction Journal.

"My most very favourite was the short story 'Forgiveness'"

"My most very favourite was the short story 'Forgiveness'. This was because I found the character the grandfather for the age of 95 a remarkable man."

-          Bookread2day

The Story of Bulgarian Jewry I Was Compelled to Tell

March 1943. Bulgarian authorities prepare to deport 20,000 Jews from Bulgaria, expelling thousands from their homes in Sofia and sending them to the countryside. Held in detention camps, they fear they will meet the same fate as the 11,343 Jews from the Bulgarian-occupied territories of Thrace and Macedonia who were sent to their deaths in the Nazi concentration camps.

And yet, despite Bulgaria's being aligned with the Nazis, despite the yellow stars the Jews wore on their clothing and the loss of their businesses and homes, and despite their men being sent to forced labor camps, the entire Bulgarian Jewish community survived the war. Who saved Bulgaria’s Jews? Did Tsar Boris III, who had originally approved the deportation orders, have a last-minute change of heart? Or can the rescue of Bulgarian Jewry be credited to the brave politicians who confronted the antisemitic government, and along with renowned members of the clergy and ordinary citizens, called for the orders to be stopped?

This is a story that has fascinated me ever since I first learned of it while living in Sofia on a two-year relocation contract. My job in an online marketing company was temporarily positioned in the Bulgarian capital, and my wife and I made the most of our Bulgarian adventure.

Bulgaria is a beautiful country

Bulgaria is blessed with thick green forests, towering mountains, sandy and rocky seashores, and an abundance of fresh water. Bulgaria’s villages are picturesque, and the country’s culture and traditions are on colorful display everywhere you go. Bulgaria is a secular country, but one with a high regard for its religious heritage. Monasteries gladly welcome pilgrims and visitors. Today, incidents of antisemitism are rare.

One of the first places we visited was Sofia’s stunning synagogue, the third largest in Europe. Built to accommodate some 1,300 worshippers, the building's main chandelier is the largest in the country. We attended the synagogue’s 100th year anniversary celebrations, and I sat a few rows behind Bulgaria’s president at the impressive ceremony held in the central hall. We were guests at the community's Passover Seder, reading from a Haggadah that was written in both Hebrew and Bulgarian.

Most of Bulgaria’s Jewish community made Aliyah shortly after Israel’s independence and today the country’s Jewish population numbers only a few thousand, most of it assimilated. Bulgarian Jews in Israel look back fondly on their homeland, and I was blessed to having lived for a short time in their country.

My heart was still in Bulgaria

Back home in Israel, I could not stop thinking of my experiences. My heart was still in Bulgaria. I found I could return to the country every day in my writing. I began publishing travel reports, encouraging tourists to visit, and I turned to Bulgaria in my fiction as well, writing two suspense novels set in the country.

But there was one story I was compelled to tell, and that was the story of Bulgarian Jewry during World War Two. I am not a writer of historical fiction, yet I eagerly dived into my research. I interviewed journalists and historians; I surveyed friends and acquaintances. I sat for hours in the library at Yad Vashem, and read the testimonies of Jews who had lived in Bulgaria during those years. I wondered how could I accurately relate the historical incidents of this incredible story.

The result of my research is my short story, ‘Forgiveness’. In the story, an Israeli man is invited to a small village in the Rhodope Mountains to meet an elderly man, a veteran of the Bulgarian army during the war. The Israeli learns that his grandfather and this Bulgarian were once best friends. While the grandfather was sent to the Bulgarian labor camps with the threat of deportation and death hanging over his family’s heads, the Bulgarian served in the occupied territories, playing a role in the expulsion of Jews from their homes and their transportation to the death camps.

Two sides to what happened, presented in fiction. Feedback has been positive, although there were those who pointed out inaccuracies in my writing. A train leaving Macedonia could not possibly have made its way through Sofia. A fire in a detention camp could not have been ignited by partisans. But more importantly, I hadn’t emphasized the special relation Bulgaria had with its Jewish citizens.

There is something unique in Bulgaria, a country in which Jews have lived and felt welcome for centuries. I learned all this and more during my brief stay in Sofia. I hope I have done justice to Bulgaria for rescuing its Jews. And, that I have paid respect to the Jews of Thrace and Macedonia who didn’t survive.

The story 'Forgiveness' is included in my new book, Rakiya – Stories of Bulgaria. The book's twelve short stories are told in the voices of both native Bulgarians and foreigners, visiting Bulgaria for the first time. In the book I hope to share the country's history, culture, traditions and natural wonders, and of course, the remarkable story of how Bulgarian Jewry survived the Holocaust. It’s a story that I needed to tell.

Originally posted on The Times of Israel.

"I was captivated and intrigued where the next story may take me"

"This is a razor sharp and powerful short story collecting. Weaving real historical events, with the author's adoration for the country, this is a wonderful collection and tribute to Bulgaria."

- Goodreads review