Pearls in Daylight

An idealistic young woman soldier is posted to a community in southern Israel to serve as a teacher in the local school. She is given the rowdiest class and breaks down during her first lesson. A Canadian pediatrician and geneticist comes to a small underprivileged town in Israel where she grew up, and suggests setting up a treatment center for autistic children to the mayor. An ultra-Orthodox woman in Jerusalem visits her homosexual son in a hospice where he is dying of leukemia, after years where there has been no contact between them. A small fair-haired street boy whose life is a constant struggle to survive waits in vain for his father, who has disappeared. An Israeli tourist in Italy looks for the Roma woman who saved her life in Auschwitz. In the title story, a Polish family appropriates an abandoned Jewish home during the Holocaust, after its owners have been sent to their death. The mother finds a pearl necklace hidden in a closet, but is too frightened to wear it openly. Years later, her daughter dares to wear it on a visit to Israel. But no one comes up to her to claim ownership.

The stories in this incisive collection explore the interface between the prosperous center of Israel and its less affluent periphery, from a cultural and psychological perspective. They peek into the world of the marginalized, minorities and the weak. Even after the protagonists escape and improve their lot, memories of the past continue to haunt them. This collection shows beyond the shadow of a doubt that Liebrecht is a master of short story writing.