I have been familiar with Ilan Stavan's work for several years. Essays and stories often about the Latin American Jewish experience is his life's work and there are few others who till this soil.

This book would be a joy for anyone who is interested in this subject. He writes in detail about IB Singer and the yiddish language and how it also informed his own upbringing in Mexico City. There, he belonged to a small insular community of 35,000 Mexian Jews. Most of his family still lives there. His father is a famous soap opera actor who had a significant role in My Mexican Shivah, a film based on a story by his son, Ilan Stavans.

Yet at an early age Stavans was attracted to the Jewish community in the United States; he writes of how this world is where the jews of the diaspora have reached full potential, free of religious persecution, able to flourish culturally, educationally and in all areas of secular life.

Stavans, now Director of Latin American Studies at Amhearst University, is a rich resource who writes easily as an essayist and fiction writer. ( )