The Best Place on Earth: Stories, by Ayelet Tsabari, are textured tales about the price we pay for calling a land a home, and then giving it up.
All the characters in this collection live in Israel, and are in some form or another estranged from their country – and at least one is not even a Jew. In one moving story “Invisible” the main character is a woman from the Philippines care-taking an elderly Israeli woman, and living illegally in the country.
Tsabari puts in crisis the very idea that we can every find a home. For Jewish Israeli’s, this crisis is even more acute, as Zionism was supposed to solve the problem of Jewish homelessness. But really, the problems is deeper. We are all homeless in an existential sense. We all feel fidgety and off-center in our world. This collection of stories stares this reality straight in the face.
All the characters in this collection live in Israel, and are in some form or another estranged from their country – and at least one is not even a Jew. In one moving story “Invisible” the main character is a woman from the Philippines care-taking an elderly Israeli woman, and living illegally in the country.
Tsabari puts in crisis the very idea that we can every find a home. For Jewish Israeli’s, this crisis is even more acute, as Zionism was supposed to solve the problem of Jewish homelessness. But really, the problems is deeper. We are all homeless in an existential sense. We all feel fidgety and off-center in our world. This collection of stories stares this reality straight in the face.
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