JEWDAR
GRAPHIC NOVELS Mysteries and Histories
A DETECTIVE STORY turned graph- ic novel, El Iluminado looks poised to do something rare: turn a scholarly, half- buried history into an accessible, propul- sive mystery with artistic flair. Set in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the story follows a fiction- alized Ilan Stavans who, while giving a talk
on local Jewish history, finds himself drawn into solving the suspicious death of a young local. His investigation leads read- ers through taco shops, cathedrals, and expansive
EL ILUMINADO Ilan Stavans and Steve Sheinkin University of New Mexico Press March 17
desert landscapes, uncovering the hid- den legacies of Jewish refugees fleeing the Spanish Inquisition: secret prayer books, coded manuscripts, and the stories of families who risked exile and execution to preserve their faith across centuries. Sophia Hershfield
MUSIC Viva la Diva
STYLE ICON. Celebrated performer. Demanding girlboss. Literal goddess. A ‘diva’ can embrace any number of these definitions at the same time (though they weren’t looking for your permission). In 2019, Paris-born, Brooklyn-based artist Laura Elkeslassy went digging into Arabic music theory, and stumbled
into what became a long journey of self-discovery. The outcome of that journey—one of lost worlds, unearthed histories, and bold sounds—previously released as a digital “multimedia album” is now coming out on vinyl. “There was a tradition of ‘divas’ in North Africa in the early twentieth century,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic
YA GHORBATI: DIVAS IN EXILE Laura Elkeslassy Ayin Press June
Agency. “Interestingly Jewish female singers were very present in the music scene at the time. The album looks across time and space to tell a tale of po- litical upheaval and exile.” Zachary Kauffman
64 SPRING 2026
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