Endless Diamonds: A Tale of the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain
For middle grade / young adult readers ages 9 and up, with appeal for adults.
Ezra Curiel is a normal twelve year-old boy. He is a Sephardi Jew living in Spain. When he is not vigorously defending his neighborhood titles as the reigning athletic champion, then he is studying for his upcoming bar mitzvah under the tutelage of the famed Rabbi Don Yitzhak Abravanel while a very young Yosef Caro watches solemnly from the side. (Although sometimes Ezra needs a little bit of prodding and reminding to make sure he shows up for his bar mitzvah lessons on time.) That is the "normal life" of Ezra Curiel, who lives alongside his adoring eleven year-old sister, Shira, as well as their doting parents.
But the year is 1492 CE. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella have issued the Alhambra Decree. In less than three months, the entire Jewish population must convert and join the Church, rejecting their Jewish identity forever. Or they will be expelled immediately with little more than the clothes on their backs.
Refusing to submit to the tyrannical oppression of the Spanish monarchy, now Ezra and the Curiel family have a new normal:
Destitute yet persevering Jewish refugees. Plundering and vicious Berber pirates. Hospitable Arabian caravan drivers. Mysterious African traders and tribesmen. Swindling Moroccan snake charmers. Malicious and cruel slave traders. Venetian artisans and merchants. Ruthless Ottoman Turkish soldiers. And a quest and an adventure that leads Ezra and the Curiels from one end of the Mediterranean Sea to the other, and all the way to the land of Israel itself.
Ezra and the Curiel family must overcome seeming insurmountable challenges and bear unimaginable tragedy on their journey. And during that journey Ezra learns the importance of family bonds, the necessity to always see deeper than the surface of people and analyze their true self and character, as well as the infinite returns that come from investing the "endless diamonds" of love and compassion into others.
Endless Diamonds: A Tale of the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain is a family-friendly, highly-detailed and accurate work of dynamic and easily comprehensible historical fiction bringing one the greatest yet little understood calamities of the Jewish people to life for both young readers and adults alike. With Endless Diamonds, families are encouraged to learn about the event that forever altered the global Jewish community and changed the entire world in a whole new way.
