Hanah’s Par­adise is a nov­el for open­mind­ed read­ers will­ing to learn about Jew­ish his­to­ry and sur­vival in a real­is­tic yet mys­ti­cal milieu. The Ravayah fam­i­ly has sought peace and secu­ri­ty through­out Europe and the Mid­dle East, always at a high cost and always with a sol­id method of remain­ing faith­ful Jews while appear­ing to adopt the pre­vail­ing reli­gious and cul­tur­al mores. This is a sto­ry of intense pas­sion, act­ing, and cre­ativ­i­ty. Con­sid­er the char­ac­ter Don Sime­on, who ini­tial­ly writes poems that cel­e­brate sex­u­al play and beau­ty and lat­er pens Bib­li­cal sto­ries told in a mys­ti­cal, fan­tas­tic style rem­i­ni­scient ofGabriel Gar­cia Mar­quez or Isabelle Allende. Rave presents Adam, for exam­ple, as a macho, id-dri­ven man inter­est­ed in sat­is­fy­ing his hedo­nis­tic desires until Lilith and then Eve ​“get smart” and start react­ing rather than sub­mit­ting to their demand­ing part­ner. 
The nov­el presents a provoca­tive theme. In being forced into exile, how have the Jew­ish peo­ple coped with forced con­ver­sion while remain­ing obser­vant Jews? Is adap­ta­tion just an excuse or even a betray­al of one’s faith? These and oth­er essen­tial ques­tions make this a com­pelling and provoca­tive tale.