* exodus by leon uris

* i found a stash of my high school and college book reviews. any askterisked titles denotes a book review from this period.

february 21, 1994

exodus, by leon uris, is an exciting book about how the jews gained their freedom after hundreds of years of persecution by the russians, germans and many other countries, that tried to exterminate the jewish race.  anyone who reads this book will gain an understanding of the jews and see why is was so important that they should fight for a homeland of their own.

the novel starts out on cyprus with a reporter meeting up with a nurse and old friend - kitty fremont.  kitty was on vacation in cyprus, but later went to work in a british detained persons camp for exiled jews after world war two.  she later meets a man by the name of ari ben canaan, who is a leader of a jewish organization.  together with the report, mark parker, they get an old ship, the exodus, and train children and prepare them to go to israel.  mark writes a story about how the jews are treated by the british and sends it back to london in order to get the world on the side of the jews.  finally the british let the boat go to israel.  when they get there, the organization gets the children into camps and cities called kibbutzes.  kitty also goes with the children, but mainly for the reason of a girl named karen clement.  karen went mainly for a boy named dov landau, who was an excellent forger.  when karen and dov arrive there, karen stays with kitty and dov goes and joins the maccabees, a terrorist group fighting for the freedom of the jews.  later on, dov and a man by the name of akiva, who was ari's uncle, are captured by the british.  ari goes to the maccabees and helps them get akiva and dov out of th British jail.  their plan succeeds, but akiva dies and ari is shot in the leg.  at about the same time, kitty and karen were preparing to leave to the united states.  when kitty hears that ari is injured, she goes to him and nurses him back to health.  after all this time, the united nations votes on the issue of the jews obtaining a homeland or not.  the jews get their homeland.  the arabs did all that they could do to keep israel from becoming a state and they end up fighting the jews to do so.  the jews put up a miraculous fight to keep their homeland.  they end up keeping all their homeland at the end.

the theme of the book is nothing byt to show the world what the jews went through to get their state.  leon uris, just as his other books, puts fiction with reality.  in this book, he uses flash-back to tell the story of the jews before, during and after world war two.  the graphic disgust of what the germans did to the jews is also portrayed in this novel.  if there were any lesson to be learned from the book, it would be the reminder of what the jews went through and how no one should ever go through what they experienced.

exodus is an excellent book to read if one wants to lean the story of the jews.  leon uris is probably one of the best sources for this subject.  he spent many years researching, reporting and travelling through the countryside of israel.  exodus might also perhaps be one of the best books about the jewish story.

mr. puckett gave me a 46/50; with the comments, "don't tell so much of the story and devote more time to response and reaction"  reading this again, i vigorously agree with his assessment!