Exile and Return (coming in late 2026)

At a time when many Americans are questioning our safety and wondering if it’s time to seek refuge elsewhere, Exile and Return offers a reminder that second passports, as much as they seem like a panacea, are just a piece of the puzzle in finding security, belonging, and home.

Exile and Return is a memoir that explores the parallels between my family’s escape from Germany in the 1930s seeking a new homeland in California, my return to Germany for a year-long sabbatical in 2024-25 to make meaning of our newly minted German passports and seek refuge from American politics, and wrestling with the idea of Israel as a perpetual second homeland for American Jews.

After our year living in Germany, it is clear to me that California is my home, even with the tumultuous political realities of the U.S. San Francisco symbolizes something metaphysical for me as the place where my family started a new life. Returning to Berlin was like reading the prologue, spring boarding me forward to embark on a new chapter of my own.

For most of the year, we felt like foreigners in Germany while seeking a sense of belonging that felt elusive. I imagined how my German grandparents must have felt as they adjusted to the culture and language of their new home. They sought a sense of connection and belonging in San Francisco just as we did in Berlin. 

In today’s fractured world, Exile and Return offers a first-hand account of what returning to Europe felt like in 2024-25. This book is for those exploring their own sense of identity, roots and belonging as a bulwark against the unnerving politics of extremism in the U.S.