Dear Librarians, A new English translation of my acclaimed novel ISRA-ISLE was recently published in America by "Mandel Vilar Press" and is getting wonderful feedback. It's a political novel exploring current issues of racism, minorities, refugees and the high cost of a territorial dispute. It places Jews, Native-Americans, African-Americans, and all persecuted people in a mutual search for a safe haven.
What if Israel did not exist? What if instead there was a Jewish state on an American island, founded centuries ago? ISRA-ISLE is the state that could have been. The novel is inspired by a true historical event. In 1825 Mordechai Manuel Noah, an American journalist, diplomat, playwright and visionary, founded a Jewish sanctuary on a Native-American island at the foot of Niagara Falls, and named it "Ararat". The novel depicts an alternative reality in which the Jewish people answered Noah's call, Isra-Isle is the smallest federal state in America, Israel does not exist, and there was no Holocaust. Imagine that. For me, the question of "what if" is a personal one. I could have easily been an American. My grandfather emigrated to New York in 1921, abandoning his wife and son - my father. When I was five years old he reunited with the family and reluctantly moved to Tel Aviv. He strongly believed that America is the only promised land for the Jewish people, and that "the experiment in the Middle East", as he called Israel, would end in disaster. As a stubborn little Zionist girl I would constantly confront him. In writing ISRA-ISLE I continued our heated argument. It was like arguing with a ghost. Imagine that. If you're interested in reading the novel, please let me know. I hope you can spread the words among your friends and Hebrew Literature lovers. All best, Nava Nava Semel visits Isra Isle, 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Dro_Jz1mI Isra Isle on Mandel Vilar Press website http://mvpress.org/index.php/gallery/23-jewish-american-fiction/164-isra-isl e Isra Isle on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Isra-Isle-Novel-Nava-Semel/dp/1942134193/ref=sr_1_1?s =books <https://www.amazon.com/Isra-Isle-Novel-Nava-Semel/dp/1942134193/ref=sr_1_1? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488234334&sr=1-1&keywords=isra+isle> &ie=UTF8&qid=1488234334&sr=1-1&keywords=isra+isle
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