Conceived with Lila Rachel Becker

The year is 1500. The Catholic conquest of the Iberian peninsula is almost complete. The Inquisition touches every corner of newly unified Spain. The Ottoman Empire is battling for global power. And Captain Ben-Zion Palachi, the Rabbi Pirate, has gathered an intrepid crew of Jews, Muslims, and New Christians to find a legendary treasure of the British Empire: the Golden Chessboard. Amidst these adventures, a stowaway named Chana makes a bid for the kind of power she cannot find on land. A swashbuckling play with music set against a rapidly shifting world haunted by the ghosts of the past, The True Chronicles of Ben–Zion Palachi resurrects the historical phenomena of Jewish pirates to explore the stories we never hear.