Echoes
of Mazal

In Search of Yona

Daniela Seker
&
Shmuel Barber

Set against the unresolved legacy of the Yemenite Children Affair, Echoes of Mazal - In Search of Yona, is a literary novel about memory, disappearance and the enduring ache of a missing child.

For decades, Mazal has carried the absence of her infant daughter, taken from an Israeli transit camp in the chaotic early years of statehood. The loss follows her across continents and through every stage of life, from the immigrant camps of early Israel to the mountains of India and the streets of New York, shaping her marriages, her faith, her body and her understanding of herself.

When an unexpected discovery connected to a forgotten bagel advertisement reopens the wound of the past, Mazal is drawn into a search that blurs the boundaries between memory, longing and obsession.

Inspired by the ongoing search for Haymanot Kassau and echoing the lyrical longing of Shir HaShirim (The Song of Songs), Echoes of Mazal explores exile, motherhood, Mizrahi identity and the human refusal to allow absence to disappear quietly from the world.

Part literary mystery, part historical meditation, the novel unfolds through echoes — voices, songs and fragments of memory carried across generations in search of return.