 And that became the context for my first novel, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, which turned me on to a whole new world of Sephardic history. For centuries, the Jews of Sephard lived well-integrated lives in Spain and Portugal, and then, in a matter of decades, it had all been destroyed. One of the faith and cultural byproducts of this dramatic change was the creation of Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah.