Starbreak

My review contains discussion of the chemistry of cremation and decomposition. I speak frankly about death and funerary rituals. I don't think I get super graphic but discretion is advised. The Holocaust is mentioned briefly, but only in reference to why cremation wouldn't have been desirable for the group that left Earth on the ship, even if cremation on a spaceship with fire could be done.

Also contains detailed discussion of different ways Jewish people relate to Israel, Zionism and diaspora politics.

My only criticism is that when the shuttle crashed and they decided to cremate the body of the person who died, it's unclear if they did it poorly because of never having used fire and the knowledge of cremation techniques being lost, or if the author also didn't know that open air cremation requires at least 8 hours of actively tending the fire and adding fuel to ensure that it stays hot enough and doesn't burn out. This is necessary because the human body is mostly water.

I was half expecting the planet's inhabitants to come upon the body and accuse the settlers of pollution, or for the unattended pyre to have sparked a forest fire before it burned out.

The information on cremation may have been in the library in its digital archive that was destroyed by the Council in a prior generation, and it would have been a curiosity rather than something the settlers would have considered, because even in secular Judaism, cremation has a very strong association with the Holocaust, so the initial group that left Earth wouldn't have considered it important to preserve the information beyond “some cultures on Earth burned their dead instead of burying them.”

In either case, I forgive the characters for not understanding the chemistry of cremation.

I am super curious about their burials on the spaceship though. A traditional Jewish funeral uses no embalming and the body is put in a white shroud, in a plain box or directly into soil. At the right depth, with good oxygen access, and with the right microorganisms in the soul, a human body placed directly in the ground could completely decompose with nothing left behind (not even bones) in a matter of weeks. So were the ship's gravesites permanent? Did they rotate cemeteries by generation and reuse gravesites older than x generations? In 500 years of ship residents dying, there wouldn't be enoughspace for all those permanent graves!

I really like this duology as an allegory for the diversity of ways Jewish people relate to Zionism and Israel. The ship's original mission was establishment of a secular Jewish homeland on an uninhabited planet. This was the Council's form of Zionism initially. Later, the Council favored a religious state, and wanted to return to Earth to claim the land that was once the state of Israel, and it's unclear whether they would choose to conquer or negotiate with any existing people once reaching Earth, but they intend to build a new Temple and create a Jewish state. Alexandra's position was that the planet should be conquered, and its inhabitants subjugated under the rule of the settlers' state. Terra's position is to create a city where humans, Xollu and (I can't remember the other species name) live alongside each other as equals not in a new state but as a part of the planet's existing system of federated cities. Terra's position aligns with Bundism, which is best summarized by the Yiddish expression “Where my home is, there is my country.”

The author did a really excellent job at portraying nuance to the positions that the settlers had about how to respond to the planet being inhabited. I have no idea what her personal position is regarding Israel and Palestine, and that's how I know she did a good job with the allegory.