Yuda, a 12-year-old boy, lives with his mother in a small apartment overlooking the Machaneh Yehuda market in Jerusalem. He has always thought that his father was dead. “So now think that he is alive, and you have half an hour to think that,” his mother tells him one morning. Right away, Yuda sets out on an absurd journey, full of trials and tribulations, to find his father. A succession of unlikely characters appear, among them: Yuda’s good friend Captain Avot, who suffers from PTSD; another friend, Ronit, who has to eat before she can get ideas; his mother, the prettiest woman in the market, a math teacher who worships Julio Iglesias; and even Yuda himself, curious and naïve, funny and touching.
This is an enchanting tale about the inner world of a boy, set in
Jerusalem and Israel of the early 1980s. Through poetic, distinctive
language, Yuda opens up his heart to reveal a sensitive and humorous view
of the world he lives in.
"An Israeli novel infused with nostalgia for the Jerusalem of the 1980s."
- Makor Rishon
“A book with smells and sounds… heart wrenching and funny.”
- Otzar Milim blog