Mizrahi Jews, some of whom came later than Ashkenazi, faced prejudice and inequity in Israel. Their need to assimilate required an erasure of their p… - Ayelet Tsabari

Jerusalem, a city surrounded by thick forests and rolling hills, where the air was fresh and cool, where everything was ancient, biblical, suffused with meaning. (chapter 18)

The sea is the setting for many of my formative memories: I spent many Saturdays there with my family, fell in love, had my first kiss, broke up with my first boyfriend. Later on I worked as a waitress on a Tel Aviv beach and got to work barefoot, watch hundreds of sunsets and sunrises, swim late at night. When I moved to Vancouver, I found myself living by water again. In Toronto where I now live, the lake doesn’t feel the same. It doesn’t offer the same promise, the same fantasy as the sea. It doesn’t satisfy my longings.

I've always been a storyteller. Before I could write, I used to make up stories and tell them to my friends and family. They were always really dramatic, with ghosts and people falling into holes in the ground, and ships lost at stormy seas. Then, I started drawing comic strips and I would show them to my mom and narrate them. As soon as I learned the alphabet I started writing stories and poems. I wrote every day, usually in the afternoons, when my parents were napping. My sister (who is seven years older) and my father recognized my love of storytelling and writing early on, and they fostered and encouraged it…