Books, Arts & Manners: Homecoming

Farewell Espana: The World of the Sephardim Remembered, by Howard M. Sachar (Knopf, 439 pp., $30)

MOST OF US Americans enjoy the mixed blessing of not knowing much about the persons and places from whom and which we’ve come. Occasionally, some family member will have letters or photographs dating as far back as a great-grandparent. Knowing who and where our ancestors were when Andrew Jackson was elected President in 1828 is unusual. Even those of us whose families have lived in only one place in this country, and who could probably know more about our forebears if we chose to, tend to construct our own self-serving family histories, conveniently putting in and leaving out whatever we wish.

BT

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Ben C. Toledano

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Farewell Espana: The World of the Sephardim Remembered, by Howard M. Sachar (Knopf, 439 pp., $30)

MOST OF US Americans enjoy the mixed blessing of not knowing much about the persons and places from whom and which we’ve come. Occasionally, some family member will have letters or photographs dating as far back as a great-grandparent. Knowing who and where our ancestors were when Andrew Jackson was elected President in 1828 is unusual. Even those of us whose families have lived in only one place in this country, and who could probably know more about our forebears if we chose to, tend to construct our own self-serving family histories, conveniently putting in and leaving out whatever we wish.