Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora

In his travels overseas as a reporter for The Boston Globe, Larry Tye found a Jewish world that was being revitalized in ways that were not reflected in what he was reading about the disappearing diaspora and the vanishing Jews of America. His discoveries led him to write Home Lands, a compelling narrative that tells the story of a renewed Jewish diaspora.

Tye picked seven Jewish communities around the world, and in each he zeroes in on a single family or congregation whose tale reflects the wider community's history and current situation. The first impression that emerges from his travels are the cities' differences. Far more striking, however, is what they share-Jews everywhere still have enough customs and rituals in common for outsiders to see them as part of the same people.