'Exodus,' tells the story of the Jewish people through the Holocaust and the creation of the modern state of Israel better and more accurately than most 'factual histories' written today. The book tells the true stories of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, of the amazingly good treatment of Jews in Denmark during WWII (which disproves excuses to the effect that countries--such as France--'had no choice' but to go along with the Nazi death machine), of the mistreatment of refugees and mismanagement of the Palestine mandate by the British, etc. The heroic struggle of the Jewish people to renew sovereignty on their own land despite all obstacles, is told here, not in the dispassionate, cynical tone of modern historians, but in the positive tone of one who knows his subject and is unaffraid to draw the obvious conclusions.

If you know nothing about Israeli history, this is a good place to start. If you have a background in the subject, you'll enjoy seeing all the characters of Israel's pre-state struggle represented, warts and all, as the heroes they were; and figuring out which fictional name goes with which historical one. Though the characters don't exactly meet up with the historical characters, a few have been mashed together into one and embellishments have been made to life stories for dramatic effect, the basic facts of the situation are there, right down to the former Nazi officers working for the Arab armies in the 1948 war, which actually happened.

RELEASE NOTES:

A Book Relay sent to raralovestoread in Florida. Enjoy!

This book arrived in the mail while I was out-of-town this week. It was part of the "Authors with Those Hard to Find Last Names" book relay. I'm looking forward to reading it. Thanks, Tribefan!

Wow ... the impact of some books cannot be expressed in words, and this is one of those books. I'm sorry it took me so long to pick it up and read it, but I'm glad I finally did. And when I did, it took me a while to get through it. This book, for me, had to be read in small portions, so that I could process what I had read. Some of it is so horrifying that I had to wait until the next day to continue reading. But the book is so compelling that I had to finish it.

I know that this is a novel, but since it is a historical novel it is based on real events. After reading this book, I feel that I better understand Jewish history that led to the founding of the state of Israel. I didn't realize how little I knew about this topic until I read this book. Again, I'm glad I finally took it off the shelf and read it.

Thanks for sharing, Tribefan. I plan to loan this book to a friend in the next couple of weeks.

I loaned this book to a friend back in mid-July. With being busy with moving, I forgot to make an entry until now.