I have often made a point of discussing some books that I have recently read, and you may have noted that I have not done this in some time. That’s because, in spite of a strong reading start for 2026, over the past month or so, I have slowed down considerably. In fact, it took me over a month to read Howard Sachar’s Fairwell Espana: the World of the Sephardim Remembered. It was an unusual book for me to pick up off the shelf for several reasons. First, it is a long book, and second because Sachar wrote it over 30 years ago, and scholarship has changed since then, I am sure.

But he writes well, and I enjoyed my slow read. I just wish that I could retain more than I know I will. The book (which I think I already read, decades ago) was organized both chronologically and geographically. There were chapters about the history (good and bad) of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, but also separate chapters on the dispersion of Jews after 1492. These included chapters on Turkey (also good and bad), Italy (good and bad), North Africa (good and bad), France (good and bad), England (good and bad), Greece (good and bad), the Balkan countries (good and bad), Palestine (good and bad), Brazil (good and bad), Mexico (good and bad), and the Caribbean (good and bad).

In fact, each of these chapters was equally interesting. In virtually every place, Jews were at first welcomed and then, either because of religious ascendancy or commercial competition, were evicted or oppressed (or both). In each location, there were great successes, and there were very successful individuals (mostly, but not exclusively men) who accomplished much in many diverse fields. Some of these individuals are well known – Maimonides, Spinoza, Disraeli to name a few – within and outside of Jewish scholarly circles, and some of whom – Isaac Abravanel, Beatriz Mendes, David Reubeni, Shabbatai Zvi, to name an additional few – are less known outside of Jewish scholarly circles.

Generally, I would recommend this book becauses it is so comprehensive. Sachar references almost every thing of importance to his subject (with the exception of early Sephardim in the United States), and never seems to write too much or too little about anything. It is the kind of book that tells a full story if you read it cover to cover, like I have, or if you simply go to its lengthy and thorough index, and look up one individual, or one location.

While I have been reading this book, I have been doing additional family history work in connection with a presentation I will be making to a group early next month. I have found that I can reach back generations on both sides of my family, but on each side only by following one ancestral line; the others get lost. For example, I can go to my maternal grandfather, and to his grandmother, and keep going back until the 17th century following one line. And following a different line on my father’s side, I can go back further than that. Neither of these lines appear to include any reference to Sephardic Jews, even though I apparently had ancestors who lived in Italy and Turkey, among other places. My 23 and Me test concluded that I was 100% (or was it 98%) Ashkenazic Jewish. I guess that means that, even if I could follow back other ancestral lines, I would never find that I was a descendant of Moses Maimonides. A descendant of Rashi? That might be another story.

Two other things.

First, yes, Sachar does talk about Christopher Columbus. He doesn’t really give his opinion on whether Columbus’ ancestry to Italian or Spanish and, if Spanish, was it Jewish Spanish. He presents some of the arguments for why Columbus might have been Jewish, but then concludes that most scholars who have studied the question do not think that he was. I myself think that Columbus probably was Jewish based on several books I have read, and of course this conclusion was supported by recent DNA testing. But the DNA testing was not available to Sachar and I wonder how differently he would present his description of Columbus today.

Second, you know how some people look Jewish? The times I have been in Spain, I have always thought that many Spaniards, especially urban Spaniards, look Jewish, and I have read that perhaps 25% of Spaniards are descended from Jews who converted to Christianity during the 14th or 15th centuries. And when I say that these Spaniards look Jewish, I am comparing them to the people that belong to Adas Israel, my synagogue. In other words, I am comparing them primarily to Ashkenazic Jews, not Sephardic Jews. I don’t think this makes real life sense. The descendants of Jews in Spain would be the descendants of Sephardim, and the Sephardim and Ashkenazic Jews split long ago, perhaps during Roman time.

But, wait. Maybe this split was only a cultural split, a linguistic split, and to some extent a split in religious practice. Maybe it was not a genetic split at all. I say “maybe”, of course, because I don’t really know. My evidence is empirical, based on a number of trips to Spain where I could sit in cafes and look at the passers-by. That is not good evidence. But someone out there knows the answer to this. This is a question that has an answer if I ever heard one. Or is it?

And bananas? I just read that humans and bananas share 60% of their genes. If this ridiculous fact is correct, can it be surprising that Jews from Barcelona and Jews from Siberia look alike? And is it even more surprising that none of them resemble bananas?