The day Lily meets Lana is her two-week anniversary in Israel. She's lying on her belly in the dried grass outside the apartment building she now cal… - Ayelet Tsabari

Growing up, I had often felt out of place in my own country, a feeling I couldn’t comprehend or name until much later. It had to do with my father; grief shakes the foundations of your home, unsettles and banishes you. It might have also had to do with the exclusion of my culture from so many facets of Israeli life, with not seeing myself in literature and in the media, with being taught in school a partial history about the inception of Israel that painted us as mere extras. Or perhaps that failed sense of belonging was an Israeli predicament, because how does one feel at home when home is unsafe, forever contested? When the fear of losing is so entrenched in us it has become a part of our ethos?

For a long time I didn’t write about Israel at all. It’s such a volatile place and people have such strong opinions and everything you write about Israel is perceived as political. It is a double edged sword—some people may find your writing more alluring because of it while others may not want to go anywhere near it. At some point I had to stop worrying. I had to resign myself to the fact that I was going to piss people off, and that people are going to read the book and interpret it any way they like, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Jewelry is an important part of Yemeni Jewish heritage. In Yemen, jewelry making was strictly a Jewish profession; the majority of the Jewish men were silversmiths and they were known for their fine craftsmanship. In fact, after the Jews went to Israel, Yemeni culture suffered a huge loss because they took their craft with them.