The Netanyahus

Corbin College, New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, Jewish historian (not a historian of the Jews) is hired to review the application of an exiled Israeli researcher specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, his unexpected family in tow, Blum reluctantly plays host to guests who proceed to destroy his American complacency. Mixing fiction with reality, The Netanyahus is a wild comedy about integration, identity and politics.
It reveals to the reader the daily history of the creation of the state of Israel, Jewish emigration to the United States and Zionist theories about the expulsion of Jews in the Iberian Peninsula. It is a novel in which we can all feel identified, wondering what it means to have a national, religious or gender identity.
Cohen answers the question of what he expects from the Spanish edition?: "it is a book about the use of history and the ways in which it is written and rewritten. About how it is constantly revised to serve the agenda present politics. Beyond the fact that it has an obvious relationship with Spain, given that Benzion Netanyahu was an expert historian in the history of the Spanish inquisition, I hope that it is relevant in the current political situation in which throughout the world, all cultures , they are reviewing their history."

Joshua Cohen (New Jersey, 1980) has been recognized by Granta magazine as one of the best current American writers. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2022 for this novel.