In The Cross and the Pear Tree: A Sephardic Journey, Victor Perera sets out on a sweeping journey to uncover the tangled roots of his Sephardic ancestry. Armed with little more than family stories, faded letters, archival documents, and a stubborn determination to piece together what history had nearly erased, Perera traces his lineage across continents and centuries, from the medieval kingdoms of Spain to the crowded neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

Born in Guatemala to Sephardic Jewish parents, Perera spent his early life navigating the intersections of multiple identities: Spanish-speaking, Jewish, Central American. Later, he moved to the United States, where he built a career as a journalist and writer, often returning to Israel and Latin America for his reporting. His own story—shaped by migrations both personal and inherited—set the stage for the family odyssey he would spend years reconstructing.

Drawing on old letters, family lore, archival records, and journeys to the cities of his ancestors, Perera painstakingly pieces together the odyssey of the Perera family.

Family tradition placed their beginnings in biblical times, but recorded history anchors them in Spain, where many Sephardic Jews rose to wealth and influence. That era came to a brutal end in 1492, when the Catholic Monarchs decreed the expulsion of the Jews. Those who stayed faced forced conversion, torture, or death.

It was during this upheaval that the Perera family was given its name—bestowed by royal decree—along with a coat of arms bearing the image of a pear tree, a peculiar, bitter relic of a shattered life.

After fleeing Spain, the family found refuge in Salonika under Ottoman rule. There, the Jewish community rebuilt itself and thrived for centuries, preserving its traditions, language, and customs. But history turned again when Greece took control of the city. Facing renewed persecution, many Salonikan Jews fled, while those who remained were later rounded up and deported to Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

One of the most haunting discoveries Perera makes in the course of his research is a handwritten curse composed by his great-grandfather in 1921. It warned that any descendant who left the Land of Israel would be doomed to misfortune. Whether seen as superstition or as an expression of generational trauma, the curse hung over the family like a shadow, a reminder of just how high the stakes of exile could feel.

Victor’s investigation takes him across cities—Bukhara, Alexandria, Hebron, New York, Samarkand, Amsterdam—and into the archives of forgotten communities. He uses scraps of Ladino remembered from childhood, fragments of songs, heirloom recipes, and family photographs to reconstruct a world that was already fading from memory. The story he weaves is one of endurance, but also of constant, sometimes painful, reinvention.

Part of what makes The Cross and the Pear Tree so compelling is Perera’s style: a blend of memoir, investigative journalism, and historical detective work. He moves fluidly between personal memory and larger historical forces, never letting the emotional weight of the story get lost in the facts, and never letting sentimentality soften the realities of exile, loss, and survival. His background as a reporter sharpens the narrative, but it’s his personal investment that gives it lasting resonance.

Israel and Guatemala emerge as the twin poles of Perera’s personal journey. Israel, the ancestral homeland, appears throughout the book not only as a physical place but as a source of spiritual longing and political identity. Guatemala, where Perera lived much of his adult life, serves as a vantage point from which he could reflect on the family’s long arc of migration and resilience.

Where The Cross and the Pear Tree shines brightest is in its small, vivid moments: the family member who smuggled a gramophone into Palestine in 1935, thrilling an entire neighborhood with the arrival of recorded music; the smell of Sephardic cuisines in the kitchen; the many Ladino phrases spoken over kitchen tables. These sensory details bring the Sephardic experience to life far more powerfully than any academic framing.

But the book is not without its frustrations. At times, Perera’s devotion to genealogical thoroughness bogs the narrative down. Page after page of names and dates can overwhelm readers who are looking for a more emotionally driven story. Some of the most promising anecdotes are abandoned too quickly, sacrificed to the demands of documentation.

In his later years, Perera sought to preserve the culture he had spent so long recovering. He founded Sephardic/Mizrahi Artists and Writers International, an organization dedicated to sustaining the literary and artistic traditions of Sephardic Jewry—a fitting legacy for a man who believed that memory must be an active, living project.

The Cross and the Pear Tree also captures a broader truth about the nature of diaspora today. In Perera’s telling, the old idea of a single, unshakable homeland gives way to a more complex reality—one in which multiple places, histories, and identities all shape what it means to belong. Israel remains at the emotional core of the Perera family’s story, but it is only part of the picture. Just as important are the sounds, tastes, and memories carried from Spain, Salonika, Guatemala, and every other place the family once called home.

Through meticulous research and intimate storytelling, Victor Perera reminds us that Sephardic identity—like memory itself—is layered, fragile, and constantly being reimagined. His journey is a testament to how roots can endure even when the ground beneath them keeps shifting. ◦

Manuel Ferez holds a PhD in Sociology from the Alberto Hurtado University in Santiago, Chile. Ferez studies ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East and the Caucasus, as well as contemporary Jewish diasporas. He is the academic coordinator of JAD Jewish Culture www.culturajudia.com