The plot was kind of complex. In the 1950's Saida and her family have left Yemen for Israel. At a camp she meets Yaqub and they fall in love but being together is not possible. In 1995 Zohara, living in NYC, goes back to Israel upon Saida's death. There is a lot her and her sister, Lizzie, didn't know about Saida and some of the secrets are unraveled during her stay to clean out her mother's house. There were words used that I had no luck finding a meaning on either Kindle or Google. All the talk of Israeli politics went over my head as I don't know much about it and it wasn't explained. Finally I just decided to skim all that. To be honest I'm not sure I really liked Zohara all that much but I got the sense she didn't feel like she belonged anywhere, not New York or Israel. When Saida was in the camp she had a young son, Rafael, who went missing. She was told that he died but there was no evidence. I wish the author had gone into that side of the story. The ending didn't really wrap things up for me.

It was very well written and the author did a good job depicting what it was like in the town and in Israel. I think in the hands of someone who is more in tune with the politics and the culture this book would be wonderful.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House for providing me with a digital copy.

What would it be like to go to the land of your dreams and feel unwelcome by people who also dreamed of coming there?

This novel is a story about a woman and her mother. It begins with a flashback in a Yemeni refugee camp in Israel. Before I opened this book, I knew literally nothing of the Yemeni Jews who left there homes to find the promised land, only to be shunted into refugee camps where many longed for home.

The love story that is at the center of the larger story is poignant, even heartbreaking, but what is so fascinating is the way it affects others literally generations down the line. And there are several generations throughout he story.

Zahara is called home to Israel because her mother has died, the mother whose secrets she never knew. Yoni, her nephew, is grieving the grandmother who raised him (though his mother, Zahara’s sister, is still alive) and he is inconsolable. Yaqub, who begins the story back in 1950, is in love with a married woman he meets when he is charmed by her singing as washes dishes in the river in the refugee camp.

Of course that woman, Saida, is the mother and grandmother who is now gone with parts of her story unknown to her family. Late in the book, when Saida’s story begins to come to light, Zohara’s sister says “How many of us ever really know our parents?” My own parents have been dead for over forty years, but it set me to thinking about what I really knew about them. What I knew, what I know, has become mythic and wouldn’t easily allow for the kind of new information Zohara needs to absorb.

The story is poignant and complex. The whole novel is a deep dive into another culture. In this day of complex questions about Israel and other cultures, I hope that many will read Tsanari’s novel. It may break your heart but it’s worth the time.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Quite beautiful though a but slow-paced. I knew very little about the subject material so that added to my interest and I appreciated the acknowledgements for the added info.

As posted to GoodReads

Thank you NetGalley, Random House and Ayelet Tsabari for the opportunity to rad an advanced copy of Songs for the Broken-hearted.
This is a beautifully written family drama about a young Yemeni woman who discovered her recently deceased mother’s secret romance. Initially, I found Zohara to be unlikeable, unhappy, spoiled young adult who needs to grow up. As the story unfolds, many family tragedies are revealed through various characters and Zohara’s behavior makes more sense. I loved how my perspective of her changes and I was rooting for her by the end. I loved her mother’s story of the immigration camp, her early marriage and the norms of her culture at the time. It was quite interesting how mother and daughter seem so different yet the phrase-We become our mothers- was in the back of my mind. Saida’s love story was so sweet and emotional that I can’t stop thinking about it.
The conflict in the Middle East also plays a big part in this story. I know I do not understand even a small portion of why the fighting continues but how tragic to live your life under strict government control because of your beliefs.
Great characters, great story -five stars! I’m looking forward to more from this author.

This rich novel, with its dual timeline, is both entertaining and informative.

In 1950, Saida, one of the many Yemeni Jews who immigrated to Israel after the establishment of the country, is in an immigrant camp where she meets a shy young man named Yaqub. They fall in love, but it’s a forbidden relationship because Saida is married and has a young son.

In 1995, Zohara, a newly divorced grad student in New York City, receives a call from her older sister Lizzie telling her that their mother Saida has died. Zohara decides to return to Israel. While cleaning out her mother’s house, she learns that there is so much she didn’t know about her mother’s life. She uncovers Saida’s secrets and learns more about her heritage, as she also tries to determine her future.

The political unrest that is so much part of the history of Israel and Palestine is central in the second timeline. The Oslo Accords giving Palestinians more self-autonomy have been signed. Yoni, Zohara’s nephew who is grieving because of Saida’s death, becomes involved in protests against Prime Minister Rabin and his government’s agreement with the PLO.

I learned so much from this book. I learned about the migration of Yemeni Jews to Israel after 1948. They thought they were going to the Promised Land but conditions when they first arrived were abysmal. They lived in tents in an overcrowded camp which smelled of “sewage and sweat and mildew and rotten garbage.” Children were placed in nurseries and separated from their mothers. And it is during this time that Yemeni children went missing: a mother might go to see her child, only to be told he/she died overnight. Since bodies were not shown and death certificates not provided, people believed the children had been taken away to be adopted by Ashkenazi Jews: “It happened in Australia to children of Aboriginal descent. It happened in Canada with the Sixties Scoop, where they forcibly removed Indigenous children from their communities and placed them for adoption. ‘It’s a method of the dominant group to reeducate a community they believe is backward and primitive.’”

I was unaware of the prejudices amongst the Jewish communities. Mizrahi Jews from North Africa and the Middle East were targets of discrimination and mistreatment from those already established in Israel who were predominantly Ashkenazi. Yemeni Jews, “as Jews from Arab lands . . . had more in common with the local Arabs than with the Ashkenazi, who thought their culture was inferior, who saw the ‘Arabness’ as a problem to be solved.” One man described the Yemeni Jews as “’a people whose primitiveness is at its peak. Their level of education borderlines complete ignorance, and worse is their inability to absorb anything intellectual. . . . What will be the face of Israel with such populations?’” Certainly the Arab Jews seem to be treated as second-class citizens.

And then of course there’s the Nakba, the violent displacement and dispossession of Palestinians. Zohara mentions that her school textbooks spoke of the founding of Israel “as this magical coming together of Jews” with “little mention of the Palestinian tragedy.” Israel provided a home for “Holocaust survivors who had nowhere to go” but one of Yaqub’s friends asks, “’can we live here in peace knowing so many of the Arabs were displaced?’” Zohara thinks of Israel as “A country erected on the ruins of others, the oppression of others.”

I appreciated that the author depicts different political viewpoints. There are those in favour of the Oslo Accords and those opposed. Some see ceding any land to Palestinians as a betrayal of their “biblical birthright”; they’re the ones shouting, “’We have a total and absolute right to this place!’” Then there are others who feel the Accords don’t go far enough: “’There is no commitment by Israel to freeze settlements. They’re still building them. . . . And how come no one is talking about the Palestinian Right of Return? . . . acknowledging the tragedy would be a start . . . at the very least, we can speak about compensation.’”
As a young girl and woman, Zohara rejected her mother and her Yemeni culture. She was embarrassed by her mother, especially after she started attending an elite boarding school for gifted children in Jerusalem: “It was there that I became embarrassed by her accent . . . her Arabic name . . . her faith, her superstitions. The unfashionable flowery headscarf . . . the tang of spicy fenugreek emanating from her skin, the stains of turmeric that lingered on her hands.” One of Zohara’s friends points out that schools “’made us believe that to be Israeli, you had to reject your heritage, especially Mizrahi’” and adopt the “’idealized Ashkenazi culture.’”

After her return to Israel, Zohara comes to see her mother in a new light; she comes to understand how much she had to give up to come to a new country. Zohara thinks of the loss of Saida’s son but Saida also lost her youngest daughter in many ways. And Zohara realizes “like all Jews from Arab lands, she could never return to where she came from. With their Israeli passports, they were not even permitted to visit.”

Zohara also reconnects with her Mizrahi identity. She learns about how Yemeni women used songs to express themselves in a culture where women were illiterate and expected to be quiet. I’m so happy I discovered Ofra Haza and Gila Beshari.

In fact, I recommend listening to the Yemeni songs of these two women while reading this novel. Given current events in Israel and Gaza, this is a timely book which sheds light on the complex history of Israel. There is much to admire in this book: it’s well-written and interesting and very thought-provoking.

Songs for the Brokenhearted is a gentle, yet evocative debut novel that unfolds in two alternating narratives and timelines. The first is about young Saida and Yaqub, who fall in ill-fated love at an Israeli camp for Yemenite Jewish immigrants in 1950. The second is about Zohara Haddad, a graduate student in New York City who travels home to Israel in 1995 upon learning of her mother, Saida’s, death. As Zohara mourns, she unravels a secret life her mother led that is revealed through a collection of recorded songs on cassettes she discovers. While Zohara embarks on a quest to know more about her mother’s hidden past, she must confront her own identity crisis as an Israeli Jew who has repeatedly been othered in her greater Jewish communities.

Overall, I was impressed with how much I learned from this book. Historical fiction is at its best when readers learn about events never covered in school. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this arc.

CW: domestic violence, death of parent, kidnapped/missing child, Israel-Palestine conflict

Aa very deeply moving story. I loved the culture the customs and history.. ia definite recommend.

Thank you netgalley and publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Told in dual timelines, the first is the stories of Yaqub and Saida who are Yemeni and meet in an immigration camp in Israel in 1950. The second timeline is set in 1995 and is the story of Saida's daughter, Zohara, who has moved to the United States but returns to Israel when her mother dies. We learn more about Yaqub and Saida as the book progresses, and Zohara learns more about her mother and her story as she comes together with her family and clears out her mother's house. She has always had a distant and complicated relationship with her mother but begins to learn much more about her mother and the secrets she kept.

This is a well written and deeply moving story about a young woman who finds love in Israel's early days and her daughter, who discovers that her people and her home matter more than she realized. Also, I found the customs, history and political tidbits compelling, particularly since the region continues to be in a state of war today. However, the personal struggles are even more captivating because of the social, religious customs, and the differences between generations.

Highly recommend!

This is a story about the bonds that pull apart and pull together a mother and daughter. The dual timelines begin with Saida. In the 1950s she was a young Jewish Yemeni immigrant to Israel where she lived in a refugee camp. Although sharing a religion with other Israelis, Saida’s experiences and culture was very different.

In 1995, her daughter who has been living abroad, learns that her mother has died. When Zohara returns to Tel Aviv in 1995, she discovers secrets about her mother and family that ultimately changes her perspective on herself, her family and how she will now live. Great insight into Yemeni culture, women’s issues, and the political scene in Israel during those times.

Both character and plot driven, all the characters are well-defined as they struggle to cope with the death of this matriarch who they thought they knew and understood. Informative, well-written and moving. Highly recommended. Thanks to Netgalley and publisher for providing this title.

Songs for the Broken-Hearted is a beautiful look into women’s lives, intergenerational misunderstandings and traumas, and the hidden histories of women’s communities and their art. Above all, it’s the story of a woman processing grief over the loss of a mother she never fully knew, learning more about herself through learning about her mother’s life. Gorgeous, evocative writing and unforgettable characters make this is a can't-miss book for fall -- highly recommended.

This was a great good. It was hard at first to see 4 different characters lives and keep them understandably different until about halfway through the book when they started crossing paths with the same information. It wrapped up nicely and we got to see the struggles of family living and religions and what was culturally acceptable and not acceptable. What happens when a wife can’t give birth and the top “woman of the house” is actually the grandmother & the decision of picking a new wife for children is dominated from the grandmother/mother in law.

It was very interesting to read as I don’t have alot of knowledge with the Yemeni Jews and that culture.

This is a marvelous novel, filled with music, stories, and a deep-dive into several little-known aspects of if Israeli history.

It's 1950. Yemenite Jews have joyfully accepted the opportunity to come to Israel. A highly traditional people with clothing and practices that would seem at home in the 15th century, they are shocked to be dumped in a refugee camp with shoddy tents, meager food and skimpy (to them) donated clothes. Their children spend most of their time in communal childcare. The Israelis seem too secular, too western. It is a bitter disappointment.

Yacub hears something beautiful for the first time since leaving Yemen--a young woman singing a Yemeni song. He wants to respect her modesty, but he cannot resist returning to hear this beautiful song.

In 1995, Zohara returns to Tel Aviv following the death of her mother Saida. Zohara is at a rough spot in her life and has a grating personality that, well, grates on her Israeli family. She takes on clearing her grandmother's house and finds a box of cassette recordings of a woman singing Yemeni songs., some traditional, some she has never heard. She doesn't remember ever hearing her mother singing, so who could this be?

Put some of the great Yemeni singers on your Spotify and prepare to be astonished. This full-throated singing has been women's art for centuries, with songs passed down orally since most Yemeni women were illiterate. Women created their own songs to express the things they could never have in a rigid society where girls were often married as children.

Life in Zohara's Israel is as fraught as life in Saida's. Many Israelis are outraged at Yitzhak Rabin for signing the Oslo accords while others see it as a chance for peace. Where will the Yemenis fall, with their sense of otherness?

"Songs for the Brokenhearted" is a glorious reading experience. Don't miss it. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book is so lovely in so many ways. The richness of the culture, both Israeli and Yemeni, that this story draws, the depth of the emotion, simultaneously heartbreaking and hope-filled, and keep observation of human nature and interpersonal relationships. I also love the theme of discovering facets of our family and friends that we didn’t know existed mainly because the ones closest to us don’t always show us their whole selves. This is a beautiful book that humanizes Israel and Israelis at a time when that is sorely needed. Bravo!

This is a beautiful book about a number of topics, some I feel unqualified to write about, but I may touch on them briefly. Largely this book is about grief in its many forms. Its about oppression and how there are many little ways to break through that oppression.

Zohara is what I would call, our guide. She's our guide through a very difficult time in Israel and our guide through grief. Its not only the grief of losing her mother, but of rediscovering herself. That is a grief because in many ways Zohara is reconnecting to her roots through what she learns about her mother's past. She learns so much about her mother, in a very short period of time, that she is forced to change her outlook on so much.

Tsabari wades into cultural identity, into the Israeli/Palestinian peace process, into the culture of the Jews that came from far and wide to settle in Israel only to find their way of life looked down upon and their very selves lessered. There is a lot being said about how women (in so many cultures but we're focused on the Yemeni culture here) are kept down and how that affects them. The women in Yemeni culture sing the women's songs, relegated to a lesser form of artistry simply because they are sung and written by women, in order to release some of their pain and anger and passion into the world. I think its beautiful they are called Poetesses.

So, too, does Tsabari touch upon a sort of assimilation, forced or otherwise. Zohara comes to grips with what damage her education away from home did to her sense of self, to her sense of community with the Yemeni, to the way she even looked at her own mother. This feels not dissimilar to what Americans did with the Indigenous in our country. Because of her desire to be like the "right" Jews, Zohara sacrificed parts of herself, including her relationship with her mother.

Tsabari also touches on religious extremism and, i think in a sense, indoctrination. Through his grief, Zohara's nephew Yoni is ripe for the picking for those who would shape that grief into a weapon. Its difficult to talk about with any level of authority for me because I am not qualified or equipped to wade into a centuries old conflict. But I do feel it was handled with extreme care. Its plain to see how big of a conflict this is, and with the books set in the early '90s there is a real sense of hope warring along side the anti-peace factions (calling it anti-peace is distilling it down to a very basic level and isn't anywhere near what was happening).

A beautiful story about a perspective I do not know much about. Such an interesting culture and I loved the time period chosen.

Israel – to ancient Jews, it was “the land of milk and honey.” To millions since 1948, it has been the State of Israel. The country and the region have been in the throes of conflict in which the loss of life, limb and property has been horrific. It is in this land that Ayelet Tsabari has set her historical fiction novel, Songs for the Brokenhearted.

There are two threads to this story. One is set in 1995. Zohara is a Jewish Yemeni woman who is estranged from her husband and has been pursuing a post-graduate degree in New York. Now she returns to Israel for her mother’s funeral, to clean her house, and to be close to her family. Her homecoming opens the door to all sorts of unexpected experiences, emotions, and revelations.

The other thread is set decades earlier. It is 1950. A young woman named Saida is in a camp, Rosh Ha'Ayin immigrant camp, when she meets a young man named Yaqub. The two meet privately for talks. Yaqub writes stories and reads them to Saida. There is an obvious attraction between them, but Saida is married. Despite their attraction and feelings for each other, the two cannot be together. Later, we learn that the unthinkable happens to Saida, her husband, and their infant son. (view spoiler)

As someone who’s lived for much of this history but remembers only bits and pieces of it, I found the political tidbits compelling, particularly since the region continues to be a continuous state of war today. However, the personal struggles are even more captivating because of the social, religious customs, and the differences between generations. There is also the fact that Zohara has been studying in the U.S.; now she’s returned home to a family whom she has missed but hasn’t really felt close to. She’s becoming involved, enmeshed even, in the lives of others. For Zohara, at times, it feels like a hot mess! I love her family and friends, particularly teenage nephew, Yoni and friend, Nir Ozeri.

Initially, I was uncertain about picking this book to read, but I’m glad I read it. It’s a different culture and a tumultuous time. There are so very many brokenhearted in this book. And there are songs that speak to them, maybe to one at a time, or maybe to all.

I received a digital copy of Songs for the Brokenhearted in exchange for my honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own. Thanks to NetGalley, Harper Collins, and Ayelet Tsabari

4 stars

I’m very grateful to Random House for making an ARC copy of this fine book available through NetGalley.

The book tells us, from several points of view, about a family of Jews who emigrate from Yemen to Israel in 1950, and follows three generations of one family through 1995. On their arrival they look to Israel as “the promised land” but find themselves relegated to tents in a crowded, poorly resourced refugee camp. Even after obtaining housing, they are treated as second-class citizens by the Israelis of European origin (Ashkenazi Jews). The main character, Zohara, is pushed to assimilate after winning a scholarship to a prestigious high school dominated by Ashkenazi Jews, and eventually goes to New York for graduate school. She returns to Israel when her mother dies suddenly, and her immediate and deep re-exposure to her family and old friends brings to the fore her conflicts about who she is and where she belongs. As Zohara cleans out her mother’s house she learns, slowly, about her mother’s rich and complex past, including this illiterate woman’s creation of poetry through song, a Yemeni tradition.

Added to the mix are Israelis' conflicts about the peace process and Palestinians, leading to the murder of Prime Minster Rabin.

The characters are fully developed; I found myself understanding/empathizing with almost all of them. This is a rich and very touching historical novel.

Note: I did benefit greatly by reading the Kindle version of the book. There were a number of words, terms and references that I was unfamiliar with, and it was very helpful to be able to look them up instantly.

Who are our parents? Growing up, we see them a certain way. Do we ask questions as we get older? Are those the ones that will help us later on? Are we even interested in knowing the people they are and how they became that way? Only after we are older and they are gone do we think of those questions. But is there anyone left who knew them when they were young and who can give us the answers we seek?

"Songs For the Brokenhearted", is about these very issues. Zohara, our protagonist,returns to Israel upon the death of her mother, after years of living in America. Fortunately, for her, there are people who can give her the answers she seeks. But does she really want to know? This novel is well written and deals with a universal topic. That it addresses the Yemeni immigrants in Israel who faced similar issues that immigrants to the US had to face, makes it all the more interesting. They were always thought of as other, a blight, an embarrassment, even though they were Jews who moved to the holy land at the invitation of the Israeli govt. This is a compelling story and I do recommend it.

There are two story lines here…
Yaqub and Saida meet in 1950 at a water fountain in an immigrant camp in Israel after coming over from Yemen.
Yaqub fell in love as soon as he saw her… and more so when he heard her singing ..sitting along the waters edge. Heartbreaking Yemeni songs. Saida ended up in love with him too.
Well.. they could not be together as Saida was already married and had a baby boy.
The other story is about Saida’s granddaughter Zohara in 1995..who is in college in New York.. comes home to Israel after her mother Saida dies and learns much more about all her family history.
I LOVED this story!
Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the ARC!

This is a complex story of a mother and her daughter and really highlights the Jewish Yemeni culture and the differences between these two generations. The story skips around so that the reader needs to pay attention. I often found myself putting this book down to go research a name, event, or place. This added to the richness of the book for me. It's an unforgettable story and done so well that it leaves you feeling as if you're still right there in Israel. I love that it was both a great story and that it brought to the forefront some of the issues of the Sephardi Jews.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this novel. It's a ten star read for me!