Nana's Story

This moving memoir captures the struggle and loneliness of a newly married Egyptian Jewish girl settling in America after being suddenly exiled from her birth land in Egypt. It is a grandmother's story, detailing the wars she lived through in Alexandria and her challenging journey to becoming a fulfilled American grandmother. Told with humor and a lot of heart, this is the everyman immigrant story. 

"I wrote my story for my grandchildren to understand that I grew up as a jewish citizen in Egypt, living a wonderful childhood among a large, loving family. In Alexandria, I had many friends of different nationalities with whom I bonded during my studies in a French private girls school. But the Suez Canal war in 1956 changed my life which erased my Egyptian identity. I had to get married in a hurry to their Papi, an Italian citizen, who I had met on a beach. We came to America with a student visa because of his studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I wanted my American grandchildren to read the difficult, lonely beginnings in my new country as a poor refugee who could not even speak English. I wanted my grandchildren to learn about our struggles to adapt and survive without any money in America. I have described our life with humor so that they do not get bored.  My story is the heritage that I leave them and they should know how lucky they are to be born Americans."