Review of "The Anatomy of Exile" by Zeeva Bukai

It's July 1967, one month after the Six Day War. Tamar Abadi and her husband, Salim, are relaxing on a Tel Aviv beach when a radio broadcasts news of what appears to be a terrorist attack. A woman has been killed by an Arab, and Salim is sure that his sister, Hadas, is the victim.

In the novel The Anatomy of Exile by Zeeva Bukai ((Delphinium Books, January 14, 2025), we learn that Hadas had lived with Tamar and Salim in a mostly dilapidated Arab village on the outskirts of northern Tel Aviv. The Arab who killed Hadas, Daoud, was from that village. Only Tamar knows the full story of Hadas’s relationship with Daoud; she will keep this secret from Salim for years.

On the morning after the thirty-day period of mourning for his sister, Salim, whose very name is evidence of his dual identity as both Arab and Jew, announces to Tamar and their three children, "We're going to America, to New York City… Five years, that's all I need," he tells them. "I'm going to make so much money that when we return, we'll have enough to buy a car and a villa on the beach in Herzliya."

But the family’s stay in New York is becoming more permanent by the year. Their exile is painful for Tamar. “The hours you put in. For what?” she asks her husband. “Let’s go home.”

As she grows up, Tamar’s daughter Ruby forms a relationship with a Palestinian youth who has moved into the apartment upstairs. Remembering the tragic story of Hadas’s relationship with Daoud, Tamar is worried that history will repeat itself with her daughter. She is determined to keep Ruby and Faisal apart.

It’s hard to believe that Anatomy of an Exile is a debut novel, for the storytelling is rich with details and the author skillfully brings the characters to life with sentimentally charged dialogues. Every word that comes out of Ruby’s mouth is that of a typical teenager. Tamar’s longing and doubt are deeply felt by the reader. Even Salim’s reluctance to give up on his American dream is understandable, if not acceptable.

Readers will be captivated by this intimate journey of an Israeli family into their self-imposed exile, and by the struggles of Tamar to keep her daughter safe, her marriage intact, and to find the way to bring her family back to the country she knows as home.

Zeeva Bukai was born in Israel and raised in New York City. Her stories have been published in Carve Magazine, Pithead Chapel, the Lilith anthology Frankly Feminist: Stories by Jewish Women, December Magazine, Image Journal, Jewishfiction.net, Women's Quarterly Journal, and the Jewish Quarterly. She is the Assistant Director of Academic Support at SUNY Empire State University and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

 

Originally posted on The Times of Israel.