New York, NY, September 2020 – In 1972, Aaron Leibel and his wife immigrated to Israel, leaving behind everything they knew in America. They lived in an immigrant absorption center, two neighborhoods in Jerusalem and on a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee, and Leibel worked as a planner in the Israeli Health Ministry, an apple farmer, a soldier in the Israeli military, a hotel worker and then as a reporter and editor for Israeli newspapers and magazines. The family witnessed the Yom Kippur War, the peace treaty with Egypt, the hyperinflation of the time and the beginning of the First Intifada by the Palestinians.
Now Chickadee Prince Books is proud to announce that it will publish Leibel’s new memoir of those experiences, Figs and Alligators, in March 2021. Leibel writes for The Jerusalem Post and Washington Jewish Week newspapers, and he is the winner of two Rockower Awards for Excellence (2018 and 2019) from the American Jewish Press Association.
An inspiring, humorous and illuminating story, the memoir is both a history of Israel and a history of one family, which reflects both the joys and the frustrations of life in Israel. Muses Leibel, “I think we made two correct decisions. Going to live in the Jewish state. And leaving.”
Figs and Alligators (the title refers to two confusingly similar Hebrew words) has already picked up impressive pre-publication acclaim. Kirkus Reviews calls the memoir, “a remarkable introduction to a complex country … brimming with historical drama,” Gershom Gorenberg, senior correspondent for The American Prospect, writes that “Figs and Alligators is a wonderful journey through the forgotten Israel of the 1970s and 80s, spiced with just the right mix of nostalgia and irony,” David Horovitz, editor-in-chief of the Times of Israel, calls the book “a warm and candid memoir,” and Hesh Kestin, author of The Wrong Jew and The Siege of Tel Aviv, writes, “For western Jews who dream of living in Israel, Aaron Leibel’s darkly funny near day-to-day account serves as both warning and invitation.”
About the Publisher: Chickadee Prince Books is a young Brooklyn small press, which publishes only acclaimed fiction and non-fiction. CPB is the publisher of the acclaimed space opera, Probability Shadow by Mark Laporta, and the Amazon bestsellers, There’s More Than One Way Home by Donna Levin and The Last At-Bat of Shoeless Joe by Granville Wyche Burgess, among many others. CPB will publish two new titles in Spring 2021.
Figs and Alligators by Aaron Leibel |
| Memoir / History | $12.99 Paperback, $5.99 Kindle
Release: March 2, 2021 | ISBN 978-1-7329139-5-0 |Distributor: Ingram and Kindle
