Victor Perera (1934-2003) was novelist and writer whose books include Rites: A Guatemalan Boyhood (1985) and The Last Lords of Palenque (California, 1986). The Cross and the Pear Tree was his best-known book.
"[Perera] movingly, even brilliantly, recaptures the vibrance and tenacity of one of history's still under-acknowledged civilizations."--"Washington Post Book World
In this vibrant, engaging chronicle, Perera, who teaches journalism at UC Berkeley, traces his family tree from the 14th century onward. Born in Guatemala to Sephardic Jews who emigrated from Jerusalem in the 1920s, Perera explains that his father came to the New World under a patriarchal curse. The author's great-grandfather, Yitzhak Moshe, rabbi of Jerusalem, exhorted his sons and grandchildren never to leave the Holy Land, threatening ``excommunication'' to those who disobeyed. Traveling to Alexandria, Egypt, Perera visits the grave of his grandfather, Aharon Heim Perera, a Torah scribe from Palestine who flouted Moshe's injunction by traveling abroad. In recovering his Jewish identity, the author liberates himself from the family curse. This beautifully written odyssey passes through Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition; France, where brothers Emile and Isaac Perera, rivals of the Rothschilds in wealth and influence, built railways; and the Sephardic community of Salonika, Greece, from which Perera's forebears escaped before the Nazi slaughter. He also interviews members of Israel's Sephardic underclass, who tell of discrimination by Israeli Ashkenazic Jews of European descent. Photos. (Apr.)
"[Perera] movingly, even brilliantly, recaptures the vibrance and tenacity of one of history's still under-acknowledged civilizations."--"Washington Post Book World
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