Farewell Homeland

Fuat Andic’s Farewell Homeland follows the fate of one Jewish family as it navigates the stormy waters of the Sephardic Diaspora in 1492 through World War II. The Ben Naum family begins their generations-long voyage the year Queen Isabella declares all Arabs and Jews unwelcome in Spain—forever. Escaping to Salonica in the then Ottoman Empire, the Ben Naums find prosperity and tolerance, but as divisions occur in the Jewish community in 1966 with the appearance of Sabbatai Zevi as the Messiah, they become his followers and outwardly convert to Islam, adopting a new family Aziz. For more than three hundred years the venerable Azizoglu family thrives among the tolerant Ottomans, but the Twentieth Century brings two world wars, dislocation, and the ultimate threat to the clan in the form of Nazi occupation and deportation West. Written with pathos and heart, Farewell Homeland is the little told story of the Jews and the Ottoman Empire, and one family’s saga of survival and rebirth.