Out of Egypt

Aciman’s memoir chronicles the forced departure of Sephardic Jews who had called the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, Egypt, home for hundreds of years. Unlike the European experience of persecution, which anchors the historical memory of American Jews, the story of the modern exodus from Egypt has a much more direct connection to the biblical narrative. The family debates whether and how to celebrate the Israelites’ joyous departure from Egypt while they prepare to leave their homeland for exile. The memoir captures the family's tension between feeling deeply at home in non-Jewish societies and remaining aware of their potentially precarious position as outsiders.