Author(s): J.S. Margot

History

A lively, provocative memoir of a woman navigating clashing cultures during her decades-long friendship with an Orthodox Jewish family.

 Broke and unemployed, 20-year-old Margot takes up a tutoring job with the Schneiders, an Orthodox Jewish family. Indignant about the insularity and conservatism of their religious life, she dismisses her employers as socially backward, out of step with the modern world. With the Gulf War and the Intifada looming in the background, Margot finds herself caught between clashing cultures: her relationship with her Iranian boyfriend Nima is met with prejudice, while the Schneiders' devotion to Israel provokes similar discontent in him. Through impassioned debates over religion, belonging and cultural heritage, Margot and the Schneider family begin to move past conflict and towards mutual understanding and appreciation. Told with disarming frankness and humour, and brimming with provocation, Mazel Tov is a powerful lesson in tolerance that leaves no stone unturned in its search for truth and cross-cultural understanding.

Author Biography: J.S. Margot (b. 1967) is a journalist and freelance writer based in Antwerp. An award-winning contributor to leading national newspapers De Standaard and De Morgen, she has also written two novels and lectures regularly in both the Netherlands and Belgium. In 2017 she was awarded the E. du Perronprijs and the Prize for the best Religious book from the VUKPP for Mazel Tov, which is her first book to be translated into English.