The Diamond Setter

by Moshe Sakal

  I am grateful to the many people who contributed their experience, advice, and knowledge: David Grossman, who read the book and urged me to have faith that it should be published in other languages and reach readers around the world; Jessica Cohen, who accompanied the book with dedication and professionalism, and whose translation is wonderfully in sync with the characters’ heartbeats; my agent, Ellen Geiger of Frances Goldin Literary Agency, who believed in the power of these words to touch people far away from where the story occurs, and Matt McGowan, also of Frances Goldin; Judith Gurewich, who brainstormed with me over countless transatlantic phone calls, and Alexandra Poreda, who gave excellent comments, and everyone else at Other Press.

  I would also like to thank my friend Sharon Bar-Kochva, for many years of a close and eye-opening friendship along the Paris–Tel Aviv route; my friend Aviad Eliya, for his good advice and illuminating comments; Sivan Beskin, Eran Shuali, Azi and Nitza Manor, Ali al-Azhari, Matan Hermoni, Lilach Netanel, Nitza Ben-Ari, Fadi Daeem, Iris Mor, Tzvika Bavnik, Alma Igra, Nadav Linial, Omer Waldman, and Ruti Grossman.

  Thanks to the staff of the IWP at the University of Iowa, and to the staff of the writers’ house in Manosque, France. Thank you to my editor, Dror Mishani, to Einat Niv, and everyone at Keter.

  Thanks to my beloved family: my father and mother, Meir and Nitza Sakal, my sister and brothers and their families, and all my friends.

  Thank you to Dory Manor, with whom I share my life wherever I may be, who read the book in all its drafts and infused it with his wisdom, and to Yair Dovrat. Over the years of working on this book, they both taught me a great deal about literature and about life.

  It took six long years to write The Diamond Setter, during which time I repeatedly made the short trip from Tel Aviv to Jaffa and back. The distance between the “first Hebrew city” and the “Bride of the Sea” is very short geographically, but extremely long in every other way. I wandered the streets of Jaffa for days on end, always returning to my apartment in a Tel Aviv neighborhood. But two months after The Diamond Setter was published in Hebrew, I decided to come full circle: My partner and I moved to Jaffa, right to the heart of the area where the protagonists of this book led their lives. In those days in 2014, the country was once again mired in turmoil and bloodshed. And then came the death of my grandmother, Ora (Sobhiya) Sakal, after a long life that began in Syria and ended in Israel. Her voice was silenced, but her story of life in Damascus, Beirut, and Aley — as I heard it from her, and as I imagined it myself — remains. And for that I am grateful.