The Seventh Heaven: Travels Through Jewish Latin America

Jewish Book Council Natan Notable Book 2020

Internationally renowned essayist and cultural commentator Ilan Stavans spent five years traveling from across a dozen countries in Latin America, in search of what defines the Jewish communities in the region, whose roots date back to Christopher Columbus's arrival. In the tradition of V.S. Naipaul's explorations of India, the Caribbean, and the Arab World, he came back with an extraordinarily vivid travelogue. Stavans talks to families of the desaparecidos in Buenos Aires, to "Indian Jews," and to people affiliated with neo-Nazi groups in Patagonia. He also visits Spain to understand the long-term effects of the Inquisition, the American Southwest habitat of "secret Jews," and Israel, where immigrants from Latin America have reshaped the Jewish state. Along the way, he looks for the proverbial "seventh heaven," which, according to the Talmud, out of proximity with the divine, the meaning of life in general, and Jewish life in particular, becomes clearer. The Seventh Heaven is a masterful work in Stavans's ongoing quest to find a convergence between the personal and the historical.


Author: Ilan Stavans
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 02/04/2020
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9780822966319
ISBN10: 082296631X
BISAC Categories:
- Travel | Essays & Travelogues
- Social Science | Jewish Studies
- History | Latin America | South America

About the Author
Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College.