Synopses & Reviews
When people discuss food in Israel, their debates ask politically charged questions: Who has the right to falafel? Whose hummus is better? But Yael Ravivand#8217;s Falafel Nation moves beyond the simply territorial to divulge the role food plays in the Jewish nation. She ponders the power struggles, moral dilemmas, and religious and ideological affiliations of the different ethnic groups that make up the and#8220;Jewish Stateand#8221; and how they relate to the gastronomy of the region. How do we interpret the recent upsurge in the Israeli culinary sceneand#8212;the transition from ideological asceticism to the current deluge of fine restaurants, gourmet stores, and related publications and media?
Focusing on the period between the 1905 immigration wave and the Six-Day War in 1967, Raviv explores foodways from the field, factory, market, and kitchen to the table. She incorporates the role of women, ethnic groups, and different generations into the story of Zionism and offers new assertions from a secular-foodie perspective on the relationship between Jewish religion and Jewish nationalism. A study of the changes in food practices and in attitudes toward food and cooking, Falafel Nation explains how the change in the relationship between Israelis and their food mirrors the search for a definition of modern Jewish nationalism.and#160;
Review
“In this wry, original work of detective nonfiction, Miller conjures her long-missing family out of a handful of objects found in a drawer. As she tracks clues across continents and centuries, we savor the pleasures of the chase.”—Alix Kates Shulman, author of To Love What Is Jonathan Kirsch - JewishJournal.com
Review
“What They Saved is that rare memoir that manages to be intellectually stimulating and entertaining, heartbreaking and full of tender humor. Millers intimate family chronicle illuminates dark historical events to make a compelling story even more memorable.”—Lara Vapnyar, author of There Are Jews in My House Alix Kates Shulman
Review
“A touching, dramatic chronicle of an attempt to resurrect, from heirlooms and hearsay, a vanished family.
What They Saved—riveting, heartbreaking, and profound—suggests, in its tone, Sebalds gravity and Ernauxs candor. Reading Millers exquisite memoir, I learned how to pay attention, anew, to the allegorical solemnity of found objects.”—Wayne Koestenbaum, author of
Andy Warhol Wayne Koestenbaum
Review
“From scraps and fragments of family memorabilia, Nancy K. Miller embarks on a riveting quest exploring the perplexing silences and astonishing resources of Jewish immigrants from turn-of-the-century Russia. A suspenseful, poignant, and ardent triumph of sleuth-work.”—Susan Gubar, author of Judas: A Biography --Susan Gubar
Review
"[What They Saved is] an unusual, intellectual perspective on an often-told story."and#8212;Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[Miller]and#160;writes thoughtfully about her efforts to piece together a family's story of dislocation, success, and broken links, and of how, in the process, Miller reconnected with Jewish history and traditions."and#8212;Publishers Weekly
Review
"Miller's suspension of the expectation of closureand#8212;her acceptance of the condition of remembering and of writing as forever incompleteand#8212;also draws her memoir deeply into the emotional experience of change that shaped modernity for Jews all over the world. And it confirms the importance of personal narrative, perhaps modernity's most recognizable voice, in framing and accepting the losses and the uncertainties of that experience."and#8212;Joanne Jacobson, Jewish Daily Forward
Review
"What They Saved can be approached as an illuminating and instructive example of how to conduct a genealogical investigation. But it is also a rich and accomplished family chronicle, full of fascinating incidents and turbulent emotions. Above all, it is a searing work of self-exploration, artful and eloquent in the telling but heartbreaking in its candor."and#8212;Jonathan Kirsch, JewishJournal.com
Review
"This marvelous memoir pinpoints the elusive phenomenon whereby memories get through to our consciousness and how they ultimately influence our lives. Capturing moments of transformation is what happens over and over in an adept memoir like What They Saved."and#8212;Judy Bolton-Fasman, Jerusalem Post
Review
andldquo;Falafel Nationand#160;[is] a book that makes food a partner in the creation of Israel in the twentieth century, set in the context of migrations, politics, intergroup struggles, and state building. This work will be an important addition to the literature on food history and the history of Israel.andrdquo;andmdash;Hasia R. Diner, author of Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migrationand#160;and#160;
Review
andldquo;What do Israelis talk about when they talk about food? Yael Raviv explores the food stories emerging from Zionism as they take shape in response to crisis, propaganda, and wave after wave of immigration. This lively and enlightening study of agriculture and cuisine as powerful elements in the task of state-making deserves wide readership in the academy and beyond.andrdquo;andmdash;Laura Shapiro, author of Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Centuryand#160;and#160;
Review
andldquo;Everybody who is interested in nation-building should read this book. Using falafel as a metaphor, Yael Raviv has done a brilliant job at portraying her native country. Bravo!andrdquo;andmdash;Joan Nathan, author of Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France
Review
andldquo;Original, thought-provoking, and in many ways groundbreaking. Falafel Nation is rich with interesting and insightful ideas and comments that made me think time and again of the ways in which Israel can be observed from the culinary perspective. No doubt, approaching Israeli history, society, and political conflicts from the kitchen and the restaurant allows for a fresh and, indeed, critical view of this society.andrdquo;andmdash;Nir Avieli, author of Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Townand#160;
Synopsis
Winner of the 2012 Jewish Journal Book Prize
After her fatherand#8217;s death, Nancy K. Miller discovered a minuscule family archive: a handful of photographs, an unexplained land deed, a postcard from Argentina, unidentified locks of hair. These items had been passed down again and again, but what did they mean? Miller follows their traces from one distant relative to another, across the country, and across an ocean. Her story, unlike the many family memoirs focused on the Holocaust, takes us back earlier in history to the world of pogroms and mass emigrations at the turn of the twentieth century.
Searching for roots as a middle-aged orphan and an assimilated Jewish New Yorker, Miller finds herself asking unexpected questions: Why do I know so little about my family? How can I understand myself when I donand#8217;t know my past? The answers lead her to a carpenter in the Ukraine, a stationery peddler on the Lower East Side, and a gangster hanger-on in the Bronx. As a third-generation descendant of Eastern European Jews, Miller learns that the hidden lives of her ancestors reveal as much about the present as they do about the past. In the end, an odyssey to uncover the origins of her lost family becomes a memoir of renewal.
About the Author
Nancy K. Miller is distinguished professor of English and comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, most recently But Enough About Me: Why We Read Other Peopleand#8217;s Lives and Bequest and Betrayal: Memoirs of a Parentand#8217;s Death.