The Betrayers

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank the following people and organizations for their assistance:

Ben George at Little, Brown USA; Will Hammond at Viking/Penguin UK; Iris Tupholme at HarperCollins Canada.

Amanda Urban at ICM in New York; Margaret Halton at RCW in London; Daisy Meyrick at Curtis Brown UK. Thanks also to Ira Silverberg, who oversaw the book in its early stages.

Roman Chavdarov, for his exceptional generosity and hospitality in Crimea. My traveling companions, Michael Burns and Simon Shuster. Elana Kriulko and everyone I met at the Feodosia Hesed. Victoria Plotkina and everyone at the Simferopol Hesed — particularly Natalia Visotskaya, who has been a tremendous source of information about Crimean Jewry past and present .

Benny and Varda Shilo, for hosting me at the Weizmann Institute. Also at the Weizmann Institute: Amos and Galia Arieli, Shimon Levit, Rada Massarwa, and Tegest Aychek. At kibbutz Ein HaHoresh: Gadi, Ayala, and Itamar Marle; Yonat and Yossi Rotbein; and Elisha Porat. To the former refuseniks with whom I met in Israel: Yuli Kosharovsky, Hillel Butman, Evgeny Yakir, Alexander and Polina Paritzky. And, once again, to Enid Wurtman, for opening doors and much else. I’m also grateful to Benny Begin, Hilik Bar, Yoram Meital, Talia Sasson, Boaz Katz, Meyer Shimony Bensimon, and Shlomo Azoulai for their time, as well as to Samer Makhlouf in Ramallah. Further thanks to Joel Braunold and OneVoice.

Many people at the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) were helpful to me at various stages of researching and writing the novel, among them Misha Mitsel, Gilla Brill, Mark Codron, Asher Ostrin, Ofer Glanz, and Michael Geller, who offered unflagging support.

Nell Freudenberger, Amity Gaige, and Larissa MacFarquhar read early drafts of the novel. Rabbi Martin Berman and Marilyn Berman also offered valuable advice.

Significant sections of the book were researched and written during fellowships at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library and at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. I am sincerely grateful to both organizations and to the colleagues I met there whose insights informed the novel, particularly those of Mortaza Mardiha.

And, as ever, I’m grateful to Hannah Young and Sara Bezmozgis.