What an emotional book about family, identity, loss, grief, love…. I cried both sad and happy tears with these characters.

I love a good multigenerational novel, especially one that expands my knowledge of other cultures and counties and the difficulties of their lives. Top marks for this new-t0-me novel.

This book came on my radar when a friend read it, and I was completely intrigued by the description. Alternating stories of a Yemeni Jewish woman who came to Israel as a refugee in the 1950s and her adult daughter, returning to Israel in the mid-'90s when her mother dies, it addresses a lot of big issues: differences in values and cultures between parents and children, finding identity in a place you are similar to everyone else but different in a notable way, the effects of a patriarchal society, politics in the Middle East, the legacy of our ancestors. It also gave me quite an education into a side of Jewish Israeli society I wasn't aware of: the frequent discrimination against Mizrahi Jews (those who made aliyah from Arab countries) by the Ashkenazi Jews who came from Europe. I was also aware that there were/are Jews of color but admit to being completely ignorant of the culture of those who came from Yemen. So this novel -- which clearly was heavily influenced by the author's own life -- taught me a lot, which I greatly appreciate. It has expanded my understanding of the complicated situation in the region, and it's made it even clearer to me that no only are there many gray areas but that a shift in perspective might help us all see that we have more in common than we think.

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley and Random House in return for an honest review. This book will be published September 10, 2024.

This wonderfully moving, engrossing dual timeline story introduced me to a part of history I knew nothing about. I knew that there had been a large influx of European Jews (known as Ashkenazi) that had emigrated to Israel after its creation as a state. But I was unaware that in the 1950s, there was also an influx of Jews from Middle Eastern countries, especially Yemen, known as Mizrahi. These Jews were considered inferior, in much the same way Blacks or Native Americans in America were. There were even numerous incidents of Mizrahi babies going missing from the immigration camps with speculation that they were rehomed with Holocaust survivors known as the Yemenite Children Affair.
One storyline follows Saida, when she, her husband and young son arrive in Israel from Yemen in 1950. She falls in love with fellow Yemini immigrant, Yaquab. Forty five years later, Saida has just died and her youngest daughter, Zohara, returns to Israel to sit shiva and help clean out her house. Zohara grew up in Israel and was one of Jews of Yemeni heritage that society attempted to raise up to Ashkenazi standards. It’s only as she’s writing her dissertation in America that she begins to realize the racism and prejudice that were in play. We also hear from Yoni, Zohara’s teenage nephew just a few months shy of being called up for military service.
Tsabari does a wonderful job of educating the reader right along with Zohara, as she learns through her mother’s friends. I also felt I got a good sense of life in Israel from both decades. There’s a lot of meat to this book. Tsabari deals with prejudice in all its variations - social strata, ethnicity, the illiterate, sexual and political. And, of course, how often these overlap. She tackles the confines of women’s lives in a conservative culture and yet how they still found ways to express themselves.
“The idea of oral poetry that was created and disseminated by a community of women fascinated me, the fluidity of it, the riffing and rewriting and borrowing, which stood against the idea of authorship as it was known and celebrated in the West.”
I truly felt transported to Israel in these two decades. The writing was lush, the characters well developed. I loved what it had to say about the parent/child relationship, how so often we don’t have a real feel for our parents’ lives.
This fulfills all my requirements for historical fiction. It taught me, it made me think, it made me feel, it was a good story.
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

Beautiful! The characters and the storytelling was absolutely on point. It feels like a beautiful integration of fiction and history. I feel like I learned a lot about Israeli and Yemeni history and I feel so much sadness and empathy for what they (especially the women) had to go through.

I felt the book started a little slowly, but the ending made my heart happy.

This is a really beautiful book. I learned a lot about Yemeni Jewish and they history.
Zohara is a complicated character. But I liked watching her set out to learn more about her mother, who she never really felt close to.
I loved the look at women and their past of singing and writing songs together took express themselves when they were forced not to.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House publishing for this ARC.

Wow this book was a lot to unload. I was so excited to read this story but honestly? I feel like I should’ve dnf’d it.
I love reading about stories that are set in a different time, set in a different country, that focus on a different culture. I want to learn, I want to immerse myself in all of it. My issue built when for most of the story, the fmc (Zohara), bashed her culture. She complained about everything, nitpicked at her family (her mother especially) and didn’t realize what an @$$hole she was until after her mom passed away. I feel like between the description of the book and the actual book, it all left a lot to be desired.

As far as the authors writing, I did enjoy it. She has a knack for storytelling. I just feel like this specific story fell flat for me.

Zohara is a Yemeni Israeli woman who returns home after her mother passes away. At a crossroads in her life, Zohara learns more about herself and her mother -- with whom she had a difficult relationship. Her mother Saida immigrated in 1950 but endured incredible hardships. The story alternates between Saida back then and Zahara in 1995 - a key time in Israeli history. I learned a lot.

Songs for the Brokenhearted is such a beautiful, meaningful book. Set in Israel in the 1950's and 1990's, it tells the story of a Yemeni Jewish family. It's a tale of forbidden love, loss, immigration, abandonment, and family family dynamics. I learned so much of the rich history of the Yemeni Jewish people and the history of Israel. The lead character,, Zohara,, is so complicated and fascinating. Her mother's story is both sad and joyful. It has a very satisfying ending, but I was sad to see it end. This is a lovely book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this advance reader copy. Songs for the Brokenhearted is a story told in dual timelines and opens with our main character, Zohara’s, return to Israel following her mother’s death. In the time following her return, she grapples with this loss, the feelings that her homecoming has aroused, and her questions around her mother’s identity/story, as well as her own (to name a few). This story is so rich with questions, characters, and history. I learned a great deal about the subject of Yemeni immigration following WWII through this story and appreciated the way that the author wove this into the story, demonstrating the true, lasting effects of trauma over time and through generations.

With all of this already said, I can only emphasize now how much I enjoyed this book. The beautiful writing, the characters I could not help rooting for, the propulsive plot— all of it was spectacular. I felt so entrenched in this story and felt such a strong sense of place while reading; I felt like I was really there with the characters and I think the author did a phenomenal job at propelling the plot forward, while also allowing time for Zohara to introspectively grapple with complex questions and thoughts. Although I cannot directly relate with Zohara’s or her family’s specific circumstances, the commentary and questions around grief, identity, family, etc. were universal and so well done. Additionally, the clear care shown by the author with regard to Yemeni history, Yemeni storytelling, and other historical topics was evident throughout the text and I think just added to the quality of the book.

This is such a wonderful story and a great debut novel. I am hoping to pick up the author’s memoir soon, as well, and look forward to her future works. I would definitely recommend this book to other readers and will be interested to see what others think of this one once it’s out!

Songs for the Brokenhearted takes place in the 1950s and 1995. The main character, Zohara is a Yemeni Jew who has now returned to Israel (1995) after the death of her mother, Saida. Previously she lived in Yemen and in the US when she was married (now divorced). We learn Zohara's mother's story, including the loss of a child, and the journey the family took seeking safety.
During the 1950’s chapters, the book focuses on Yaqub, a young man who falls in love with Saida while in an immigrant camp but she is married and there is no future for them. The historical issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict play a large part in Yaqub’s life and this shows us in part, some of the reasons why it's so difficult to achieve peace in that region.
Zohara and her older sister Lizzie have a very difficult relationship. Lizzie is ten years older and doesn’t understand Zohara and the life she leads, coming and going, as she pleases. While Zohara is cleaning out her mother’s house after her death, she finds out more about her mother ie her love of singing and her writing of “Women’s Songs” and about a man her mother loved while she was in a loveless marriage.
An interesting read and I learned some more about the Jewish culture and the Yemeni Jewish peoples.
Well worth the read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for my eARC.

Songs for a Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari is story about the Yemeni Israeli people that immigrated to Israel from Yemen back in 1950. It is a duel timeline between mother and daughter, 1950 and present day 1995. Saida is a young girl in 1950 that left her country of Yemen to make a new life in Israel with her husband and newly born son. At the immigration camp, she meets and falls in love with Yaqub. At that time, a married woman had no place befriending another man. Saida’s son disappears while at the camp and she eventually moves to a permanent arrangement with her husband and has 2 more daughters.

Saida’s one daughter, Zohara, is sent away to school from High School on. She never really feels part of the family and does not have a close relationship with her mother. After High School she moves to the US to continue her studies, hardly ever going back to visit. She marries but eventually divorces. When her mother dies, she travels back to Israel to help out her sister Lizzie. It is then that she discovers many secrets about her mother that she never knew before.

At that time, women didn’t have much of a voice. So they would write songs and get together to sing them. They told of their feelings and their desires. She also discovers letters and a picture that her mother had hidden. She sets out to discover who her mother really was, learns of the women’s songs, and of her mother’s one true love.

This was a lovely written story about a time in history that not much is recorded and discussed. I thank Net Galley for giving me the opportunity to read this pre-release. The book will be available in September 2024.

This was not a quick read, but a beautiful novel that explored a lot of themes that I found really interesting and poignant.

…..”If I were yours
And you were mine
If I were a raincloud
I’d quench your thirst.
If I were a bird with a
curly wing
I’d shelter you from
the hot sun
If I were grapes
strung on a vine
I’d squeeze the flesh
of my fruit
and pour juice into
your mouth
- By Unknown Yemeni Poetess


It’s rare that an historical story is as beautifully written as this one was. There is so much compassion, a strongly felt compassion, as well, that pulled me into this story and kept me there.

This is a story of family, of war, of love, friendship, and finding the people who will become a part of your story.

’Saida and Yaqub both came from Haidan in North Yemen. Both were orphans. Both were young. He was just a boy. She was just a girl. They met at an all-Yemeni immigrant camp in Rosh HaAyin, once a British Air Force base, and now a large tent city. It was a new city built of hope, despair, dreams, and catastrophe of others, on an ancient land’.

This story begins in 1950, where we meet Yaqub and Saida at the immigration camp, Mahane Olim Rosh HaAyin, but it is a story that shares the lives of so many, as well as a recent loss, and the grief that follows, as well as the things that haunt her, and the things that she never knew.

Shared in dual timelines, this was a lovely read, if often sad, there is also such a sense of passion for this life, of living it to the fullest, to fully embrace this gift that we’ve been given.


Pub Date: 10 Sep 2024

Many thanks to for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Random House / Random House

I was asked to review “Songs for the Brokenhearted” by Ayelet Tsabari. I was not familiar with the writer so I picked up the book not quite sure what to expect. What I found was a very timely story.

This story had a dual time line. We start in the fifties where Saida and her Jewish family who moves to the new state of Israel, but also meet Saida’s daughter, Zohara, in the nineties, when she discovers about her mother’s death. As Zohara goes through her mother’s things, she discovers a variety of her mother’s writings and music, which encourage her to learn more about who her mother was as well as who she became.
Yet, as she learns more about Saida, she also learns a lot about herself.

The novel went into topics I knew little about including Yemen and its immigrants as well as Israel. I did think the author did a good job in developing her characters and their relationships. There was also a lot of information on Yemeni songs and poetry, which wasn’t my cup of tea, but still interested.

Three and a half out of five stars.

My thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this great read.

4.5 This is the story of a family with lots of secrets , of a country with a complicated history and present and a story about finding yourself and your culture. Yohara, a Yemeni Israeli, returns to her homeland when her mother dies and discovers, her mother as a person nothing like she expected, like she thought she knew. It is also her mother's story and a love story that transcends time. There is a lot in this book, to think and feel about.

Gorgeous book. I loved the style and also the story. This was historical fiction that taught me a great deal.

I'm sorry but this was an absolute snoozefest 🥱 Had to drag myself through. Truly nothing else to say about it.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the eARC!

This novel, which is set in Israel in the 1950s and 1990s (my favourite!), tells the story of a Yemenite immigrant family from multiple perspectives, focusing on Saida. It starts off slowly, unraveling the mysteries of Saida’s life, before picking up the pace significantly in the final part, as everything comes together. It contains some beautiful descriptions that are connected to the land. Best of all, it presents multiple political perspectives (a very delicate topic in this context) respectfully, without making anyone look outrageous. (It reminded me of Amin Maalouf’s similar careful approach.) I enjoyed the novel overall, although I thought just a few of the connections were a little too neat, and I was surprised by the lightness of the ending. I learned a lot, and I think people will learn even more than I did from this work. I really appreciated the author’s long acknowledgements section, which told me more about how the book was written and pointed me towards resources for further research.

“They met at an all-Yemeni immigrant camp in Rosh HaAyin, once a British air force base and now a large tent city, in a new country born of hope and despair, built on the dreams of some and the catastrophe of others, on an ancient land, soaked with blood. All around the country, other camps like theirs were being constructed in haste, one after the other, to accommodate Jewish migrants—hundreds of thousands of them—from Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Iraq, Iran, Morocco.”

As another reviewer said, “There’s so much that this novel covers and made clear to me how little I truly knew about these time periods.” There’s so much I didn’t know about these time periods, this culture, this country and the Jewish communities. I learned so much as I read this book, and I found myself very intrigued.

I loved reading about the Yemeni women’s songs and how they used their music to express themselves in a society where women were to remain quiet. Singing was their voice; the songs were their poetry.

Zohara’s experiences with grief touched me:
🔸 “Some days, singing was the only thing I could do when grief knocked me out. Not a metaphor, but an actual, physical pain in my body, a heavy lead blanket over my chest. Grief didn’t care that I’d experienced loss before; it resisted linearity; it laughed at the face of any supposed stages.”
🔸 “The world kept going. The world kept going without her in it. I knew it did and still I was stunned by it.”

The prejudices among the Jewish communities, especially towards the Yemen Jews, was disconcerting:
🔸 “Sami maintained that as Jews from Arab lands, they had more in common with the local Arabs than with the Ashkenazi, who thought their culture was inferior, who saw their “Arabness” as a problem to be solved. “Ben-Gurion himself had said the Yemeni Jew is primitive, two thousand years behind the Ashkenazi.

The Yemeni refugee experiences were alarming. Their worldly goods were confiscated before and after traveling to Israel. The refugee camps took babies from their mothers and placed them in camp nurseries—many disappeared overnight; taken to the hospital for sudden “illness” and later declared dead with no paperwork or documentation. The families suspected their babies were given to wealthy, established Jewish families in Israel to be raised in traditional homes.
🔸 “He thought of the way they had pictured Israel back in Yemen, what years of yearning could do to a person. “We thought it was the coming of Messiah,” the farmers outside the makolet said bitterly. “We thought angels of God would be walking the streets. Israel was a desired woman they never stopped pining over. No wonder the reality was such a slap in the face.”

Zohara’s thoughts on Israel were notable:
🔸 “In the US, I sometimes couldn’t recognize people’s anger; they masked it in sweet words or facial expressions I couldn’t decipher. Back home, everything felt tinged with rage, hot red, a pot on the brink of overflowing. People were so quick to blow up, in the bank lineup, on the road—especially on the road—and they did it in such an uninhibited fashion. An honest, unbridled and raw display of emotion. Maybe Israeli anger was also a manifestation of helplessness, of grief. This was a nation of migrants, exiles and survivors, people who fled from genocide and persecution only to arrive at this place where wars never end, and kids join the army at eighteen.

And finally, the overall lesson in learning who our parents really are; their history, their stories and their songs. I loved the author’s note at the end:
🔸 My wise, beautiful mother told me about growing up in Sha’ariya in the fifties, and when I agonized over how hard it was to write a love story that took place in a conservative society, said, “These things happened, even if nobody talked about it. People are people.”

Advanced reader copy courtesy of the publishers at NetGalley for review.