For as far back as I can remember, every wedding reception has started the same. After the ceremony, the guests flood the ballroom where the dancing and eating take place. The food is buffet, always buffet. Syrians are far too energetic, late, and unreliable for a seated dinner. Not to mention finicky over food; you will never find two guests who agree over an appetizer, let alone an entire course. There’s usually about thirty minutes of drinking and mingling before the bride and groom enter the room as husband and wife, usually to rowdy applause and an announcement by the DJ. They have their first dance. Sometimes, it’s followed by the father-daughter or mother-son dance. After those formalities are out of the way, it’s time for the main event: the party, and it begins with a tribute to our elders, otherwise known as the nobeh. For about six or seven songs, fifteen to twenty minutes, the DJ will harken back to Egypt, to Lebanon, to Damascus. I can hear the familiar ascent of the ebullient violin, the merging of the traditional oud with the modern synthesizer. Nancy Ajram’s voice spills over the speakers with longing and joy. Nobody from my generation speaks Arabic. We mangle the words into a false translation but nevertheless, when “Ah W Noss” is played—and it is played often—we sing along to our manufactured chorus: Boosy, Boosy, Boosy!

“Let’s go, Sitto, this is for you!” Steven and I help Sitto out of her chair and lead her out of the bridal room and into the hall.

“Mabrook.”
“Thank you.”
“Mabrook, Mrs. Cohen.”
“Abal!”
“Mabrook! Beautiful.”
“Sabi andak. Thank you.”
“Mabrook!”
“Abal, inshallah by you next.”

We move slowly past the throng of well-wishers and into the ballroom of The Plaza, which is dressed exquisitely in white florals and candlelight. The guests are dressed to the nines, and they make a path for us to enter the middle of the crowded dance floor. Sitto can barely walk on her own, but she will dance.

“There you are!” Lucy is radiant, and sweaty. Olga, the bridal attendant, dabs Lucy’s forehead with a white napkin and lifts a straw from a glass of ice water into her mouth. Lucy beckons us toward her. Steven passes Sitto’s arm to my mother and heads toward the other side of the dance floor, where David and the men dance separately before the music transitions to English and the two sides converge. “See you,” I mouth to him. “Save me,” his eyes seem to say. Steven isn’t exactly the mosh pit of men type but he goes anyway, to spectate as much as to show he’s there. My mother grabs my hand, I grab Fortune’s, and she grabs Lucy’s as we form a circle around Sitto. She sways her hips seductively to the beat and raises her arms in the air, twisting her hands as if she is screwing in a lightbulb. Boosy, Boosy, Boosy! The guests around us close in, clapping as we rotate around Sitto, and she moves to the music of her youth, now Farid al-Atrash, a deep and unmistakable yearning for home, set to a faster tempo courtesy of the DJ.

Leh leh leh leh! Some of the elder women in the crowd howl with joy as David’s mother and grandmother make their way inside the circle. Lucy takes the hands of her new family and together they dance.

“Aboose, Sitto,” Fortune leans in and shouts into my ear. She looks at ease, maybe for the first time in months, but still, I can see the vulnerability behind her eyes. While I don’t think there is a single part of her that regrets what she’s done, it’ll take some time before she’s completely comfortable being on her own. Sitto and David’s grandmother hold hands now, mouthing the words in their native tongue like they’re sharing secrets. I wonder if they had envisioned this when they fled Syria. I wonder if they had even allowed themselves to dream this big, this wild. I imagine that when you are forced to leave with nothing, hoping for anything other than survival feels like excess. How did we get here? Thirty years ago my grandmother and father were refugees, and today they’re complaining that the lamb chops at the glatt kosher catered wedding in the ballroom of The Plaza Hotel are well done. If we don’t ask these questions, if we don’t stop to think, we run the risk of losing everything.

Lucy pulls me into a dizzying dance. All around me, there are faces. My mother’s, Sitto’s, Lucy’s, and Fortune’s. First cousins, second cousins, Giselle, Sari, and some friends whose names I can’t remember. At least two dozen girls waiting for their turn and wondering if it’ll be with one of the boys across the dance floor. Each of them having painstakingly chosen their dress, styled their hair, and had their face made up, probably under the watchful eye of their own versions of a mother in a robe. I’m pulled into an extended circle as Lucy and my mother take center stage, hugging and dancing and looking to see who will be next to punctuate the center. From the corner of my eye, I see Olga carefully leading Sitto off the dance floor and toward a round table, where some of the great-aunts are seated. While the music ends for some, for others it’s just the beginning. Round and round we go, dancing for others in the hope that when it’s our turn, they’ll be there to dance with us.

I pull my hand from Fortune’s sweaty grasp. “I’m gonna get a refill!” I shout over the music. I weave my way off the dance floor like a quarterback holding the winning touchdown. When people acknowledge me, they don’t have that pitiful look I’d grown so accustomed to. Sitto is already knife-deep in a piece of lamb when I reach her. The floral centerpiece from the table sits on the empty chair next to her. She hadn’t even waited for the party to end. G-D, I love this woman. Whoops and hollers ricochet from the dance floor as the music transitions to a David Guetta hit, and the two sexes converge.

“When I was your age, I could’ve danced all night.” She stretches her flesh-colored stockinged leg in front of her. “When I was your age, I did dance all night. Where is that adami boyfriend of yours? He’s a lost puppy without you.”

“So you’ve noticed that, too?” I laugh.

“What did I always tell you?” Sitto forks a sweet potato. “Every pot . . .”

“Has a lid,” I finish. “Yeah, you were right.” Sitto and I both pivot slightly to watch the ensuing rave on the dance floor. My mother and father dance together surrounded by a bunch of their friends. Even Carmen is here, possibly having more fun than anybody. I nearly miss Fortune slip away from the dance floor, the kid who owns Spice following closely behind. I track them as they head toward the bar together. My mother had felt guilty and invited him and his parents at the last minute. I guess I’m glad they did. Fortune certainly seems to be.

“You know.” Sitto leans in. “Your grandfather had a saying when we moved to this country. He would say: It’s Halab against the world. Of course, you could have coffee with the Italians. You could do business with the Chinese. You could shop in the Mexicans’ store, and you can speak the same tongue as the Arab. But at the end of the day, a Syrian Jew only has a Syrian Jew. We have to stick together.” She balls her hand into a strong fist. “Tell me, where else can you find this?” She spreads her arms in front of her. The room is buzzing with chatter. Some are no doubt talking about the wedding, maybe a few have even found cause to complain. Are you invited to this one next week? Do you have the bris tomorrow morning? You heard, so-and-so’s daughter got engaged? There are five stages of plant life cycle. Sometimes I think that for Syrian Jews there are maybe three: Birth, Marriage, Death. It’s the prolonged commentary in between each one that makes us seem eternal.

“Don’t roll your eyes,” Sitto says. “What more could you ask for? Listen, now that you have found someone, maybe you’ll hear me. People outside the community, they want you to believe that this is a trap. Especially the women—they are always running these days. Running, running from the home. To the city, to the Bergdorf’s, to exercise. ‘The kitchen is suffocating.’ Who really believes this? Tell me. Tell me how you can think this is true. The kitchen is the center of the home; it is the sun around which all of the other planets orbit. Take away the kitchen and you have no home, just brick and cement. Without it, you have no tradition. You don’t have this, The Plaza,” she says disparagingly. “Yes, it is wonderful to be here. It is beautiful, mushalla, of course it is. But what comes after tonight, what comes next—that, Nina, is the real beauty.” She presses her palms into the table. “The suffeh, the presence of tradition in the home. That is where the seeds are planted, watered, and grown. Religion gives you fear, but tradition gives you a sense of home. Don’t think”—Sitto shakes her head—“a mother’s job is the hardest in the world. It’s one thing to instill a love of home in your children, it’s another to make sure they go out and build homes of their own. And close by. Of course, you must stay close. Uh-huh.” Sitto nods toward the dance floor, seeming satisfied with herself. When I look in that direction, I see Steven, his eyes scanning the room like lines on a heart rate monitor. “Lost puppy.” Sitto squeezes my knee tenderly. “Humdullah. Go get him before he wets himself yanni.”

“Sitto!”

“Go.” She shoos me off the chair. “You are young. Go enjoy yourselves. I wouldn’t be sitting with you if my knees still worked. Believe me that.” I do as I’m told, straightening my dress and lifting its straps as I get up. When Steven’s and my eyes lock, I make my way toward him. •

Sisters of Fortune can be ordered on Penguin Random House at the link here.

Esther Chehebar is a contributing writer at Tablet magazine, where she covers Sephardic Jewish tradition and community, and a member of Sephardic Bikur Holim, a non-profit supporting the growing Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn. She holds an MFA from the New School and has had her work featured in Glamour and Man Repeller. Chehebar’s first book, I Share My Name, was an illustrated children’s book explaining the Sephardic tradition of naming children for their grandparents. She lives in New York with her husband, their kids, their Ori-Pei named Jude, and a couple of fish. This is her debut novel.

[Excerpted from Sisters of Fortune by Esther Chehebar. Copyright © 2025 by Esther Chehebar. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.]