Exodus (Uris novel)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other books, see Exodus (disambiguation) § Literature.
Exodus
First edition
AuthorLeon Uris
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistorical fiction
PublisherDoubleday & Company
Publication date
1958
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages608 pages

Exodus is a

Jewish
state.

Published by Doubleday in 1958, it became an international publishing phenomenon, the biggest bestseller in the United States since Gone with the Wind (1936)[1] and was still at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list eight months after its release.[2]

Otto Preminger directed a 1960 film based on the novel, featuring Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan. It focuses mainly on the escape from Cyprus and subsequent events in Palestine.

The origins of Exodus

Uris covered the

MGM and writing articles about the Sinai campaign.[3][4] It has also been reported that the book involved two years of research, extensive travel including 12,000 miles within Israel, and 1,200 interviews.[5][6]

Uris would say of his thinking:

There is a whole school of American Jewish writers who spend their time damning their fathers, hating their mothers, wringing their hands and wondering why they were born. This isn't art or literature. It's psychiatry. These writers are professional apologists. Every year you find one of their works on the best-seller list. Their work is obnoxious and makes me sick to my stomach. I wrote Exodus because I was just sick of apologizing—or feeling that it was necessary to apologize.[7]

Others claim Uris was approached by a public relations firm in the mid-1950s with the idea of a writing a propaganda novel on behalf of Israel.[8][9][10][11][12][13]

Whatever the genesis of the work, it initiated a new sympathy for the newly established

State of Israel.[14] The book has been widely praised as successful propaganda for Israel. Uris acknowledged writing from a pro-Israel perspective after the book's publication, stating that: "I set out to tell a story of Israel. I am definitely biased. I am definitely pro-Jewish," and the then–Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion remarked that: "as a piece of propaganda, it's the greatest thing ever written about Israel".[15][16]

The book also attributed greatly to general knowledge of the Holocaust for Jews and non-Jews alike and mainstreamed the plight of the Jews under Nazi Germany.

Plot

Summary

In 1946, American foreign correspondent Mark Parker and American nurse Kitty Fremont reunite as old friends. Kitty is an American volunteer at the

Holocaust survivors—are being held by the British, who will not let them go to Palestine
. Separately, another pair of friends, Jewish fighters Ari Ben Canaan and David Ben Ami, also reunite.

Ari obtains a cargo ship, which became the SS Exodus, with the intention to smuggle 302 Jewish children out of the camp for an illegal voyage to Mandate Palestine before being discovered by military authorities. When the British learn the refugees are in a ship in the harbor of Famagusta, they blockade the harbor and prevent it from sailing. The refugees stage a hunger strike, during which the camp's doctor dies. Ari has wired the ship with explosives and threatens to blow up the ship and the refugees if the British try to board. When the British attempt to gain time by trying to negotiate, Ari announces that every day 10 children will commit suicide on deck for the world to see. The British relent and allow the Exodus safe passage.

A generation previously, Ari's father Jossi and uncle Yakov came to Palestine following the Pogroms in the Russian Empire. They are disappointed because the Jews don't farm and take money from overseas philanthropists. The brothers change their names to Akiva (Yakov) and Barak (Jossi). Jossi tries to understand the Palestinians, using demonstrations of force to gain their respect. The Balfour Declaration is issued during World War I. The two brothers become senior in the Jewish government, and debate using terrorism to fight the British authorities.

The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine is approved, and the conflict with the Palestinians begins in earnest. The Haganah forces prevail over the three Arab generals who vie for fame. They adopt the tactic of siege warfare. Jewish victory at Safed, incorrectly rumored to be through use of an atom bomb, frightens the Palestinian fighters, who flee to Lebanon. Israel proclaims its independence and gradually defeats the Arab nations.

Themes

The main plot of the novel, writes Bonnie Helms, involves a "story of great courage."[17] Among the characters are "freedom fighters" Ari and Barak Ben Canaan and Dov Landau, whose stories are told in flashbacks. American nurse Kitty Fremont and German refugee Karen Hansen work alongside them to help defeat the British blockade of Palestine. The novel includes several love stories, although they often take place in surroundings of violence and terrorism. "Uris gives the reader a strong sense of the past, present, and the future of the Jewish people," states Helms.[17]

The personal stories in Exodus inspired its characters to seek their meaning and identity in relation to their social settings. Those settings were composed of their previous personal experiences, which were then grounded in both religion and geography. According to William Darby, "The leading characters in Exodus only find romantic happiness when they understand that they must conjoin nationalistic, religious and personal aims."[18]

Years after the success of the book, Uris explains why he thinks it received such an enthusiastic reception:

Exodus is the story of the greatest miracle of our times, an event unparalleled in the history of mankind: the rebirth of a nation which had been dispersed 2,000 years before. It tells the story of the Jews coming back after centuries of abuse, indignities, torture, and murder to carve an oasis in the sand with guts and with blood....Exodus is about fighting people, people who do not apologize either for being born Jews or the right to live in human dignity.[19]

Characters

Ari Ben Canaan

Ari Ben Canaan, a sabra born and raised on a kibbutz, goes on to become one of the mainstays of the Israeli freedom movement. The handsome Ben Canaan is described as six feet and three inches tall, with dark hair and ice-blue eyes. His father, Barak Ben Canaan (formerly Jossi Rabinsky, born in the Russian

Jewish Agency for Palestine. His uncle Akiva (formerly Yakov Rabinsky) leads the Maccabees, a militant organization (based on the Irgun). The brothers came to Palestine after their father was murdered in a pogrom
.

As a young man, Ari was in love with a young woman, Dafna, who was tortured, raped, and murdered by Arabs. Dafna later becomes the namesake of the youth village, Gan Dafna, around which a large part of the story unfolds. As part of the Mossad Aliyah Bet (an organization which organized Jewish immigration to Palestine), Ari is extremely creative in devising techniques to bring Jews from all over the world to Palestine – more than allowed by the British

Exodus 1947 operation and a leading member of the Israeli intelligence community.[20]

Katherine "Kitty" Fremont

Katherine "Kitty" Fremont is described in the novel as being tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful. An American nurse newly widowed, Kitty meets Ari Ben Canaan in Cyprus. Grieving for her lost husband and the recent death of her daughter from

displaced persons
(DP) camp. This attachment and her attraction toward Ben Canaan result in her becoming, initially with reluctance, involved in the freedom struggle. She eventually becomes irritated at Ari's lack of emotion towards violent deaths, but comes to understand and accept his dedication to Israel.

Mark Parker

Mark Parker is an American journalist and Kitty Fremont's friend. He is credited as the

Exodus
after it left on its voyage to Palestine, as a blackmail against the British.

Bruce Sutherland

Bruce Sutherland is a British

military officer (rank of brigadier) whose mother was Jewish. After a lifetime of soldiering, he is posted to Cyprus, with instructions to maintain security at the detention camps. Like many British aristocrats he has a stifling, formal manner of speech. Internally, he is torn between his sympathies with the Jews he is required to guard and his duties as a British officer; the horrors he witnessed when his battalion liberated Bergen-Belsen
is also a factor. He retires from the army at his own request after a mass escape engineered and led by Ari Ben Canaan. Despite this, he moves to Palestine to settle, becomes good friends with Ben Canaan, and acts as a very unofficial military advisor.

Karen Hansen Clement

Karen Hansen Clement, described as tall, with long brown hair and green eyes, is a German teenager who was brought up for a while by foster parents in

Hitler rose to power in Germany. Her family was subsequently interned in concentration camps, where her mother and two younger brothers die. Before she is transported to Israel, Karen is placed in a Cypriot refugee camp and is one of the passengers on the Exodus. Karen does meet her father again in Israel, but he is a broken man who is unable to communicate or recognize his daughter; the experience leaves her unnerved and shattered. Despite this, she maintains her gentle and dainty personality. At the end of the novel she is murdered by fedayeen
from Gaza.

Dov Landau

Dov Landau, described as being blond, blue-eyed, small, and young-looking for his age, is an angry teenager who lost his entire family to the

forger, he narrowly escapes the gas chamber by displaying his talent to the camp doctor. The doctor is not able to tell the difference between his own signature and the five copies that Dov makes. Dov works as a forger but is then assigned to work in a Sonderkommando, which he barely survives. After the camp is liberated, he ends up in Cyprus and eventually Israel as part of the escape organized by Ari Ben Canaan. He joins the Maccabees (based on the Irgun
), a Jewish militant organization that is headed by Barak's brother Akiva. He is driven by a thirst for revenge "that only God or a bullet can stop". He falls in love with Karen and later becomes a Major in the Israeli army. He becomes unofficially engaged to Karen, but after she is murdered by the fedayeen, he forces himself to go on working for Israel, to make her proud of him.

Jordana Ben Canaan

Jordana Ben Canaan, described as tall, red-haired, and blue-eyed, is Ari's fiery younger sister, a leader of the Palmach (Haganah elite unit), and the lover and fiancée of David Ben Ami. Jordana is typical of the young native-born girls and, initially hostile toward Kitty—believing that American women are no good for anything other than dressing up prettily—changes her opinion when Kitty saves Ari's life and later becomes more identified with Israel's struggle. After the death of David Ben Ami, Jordana sinks into depression but never mentions his name.

Barak Ben Canaan

Barak Ben Canaan (born Jossi Rabinsky) is 6 feet, 3 inches tall, red-haired, and blue-eyed and the father of Ari Ben Canaan. He was born in the Russian

Jewish Agency
. After his brother Yakov/Akiva joins the Maccabees, he cuts off all contact with Akiva. Near the end of the novel, Barak dies of cancer and is buried next to Akiva.

Akiva

Akiva (born Yakov Rabinsky), is of medium height, brown-eyed, and dark haired. He is Barak Ben Canaan's brother, a poet, and leader of the radical underground group the "Maccabees". While Akiva's organization bears some resemblance to the real-life

Acre prison break
; his brother Barak is later buried next to him.

David Ben Ami

David Ben Ami is black-haired and brown-eyed, and a close colleague of Ari Ben Canaan, both in the Haganah and later in the IDF. He is also Jordana's lover and a friend of Kitty Freemont's. He was born in Jerusalem, is university educated, and plans to take a doctorate. Steeped in religious and mystical lore, he is also a specialist in Biblical archaeology and warfare. In this regard, his knowledge is valuable in the relief of besieged Jerusalem. He is killed in action after leading a suicide mission to capture the Old City of Jerusalem.

Rebecca Landau/Zev Gilboa

Two Jewish suicide bombers who sacrifice themselves in acts of final desperation to kill their adversaries. Landau's targets are German soldiers during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during World War II;[21] Gilboa's are Arab fighters at the siege of Fort Esther during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.[22]

Reviews and critical commentary

The book became an international bestseller upon its release in 1958, and the biggest bestseller in the United States since

State of Israel.[14]

Various reasons were cited by reviewers as to why Exodus was so well received. Among them was the fact that the book, a historical novel, came out ten years after the widely publicized Exodus Affair, which involved a ship named SS Exodus, from which the book took its title. In 1947 the British seized the ship as it was about to cross into the territorial waters of Palestine and deported all its passengers - Jewish refugees trying to immigrate illegally, many of them Holocaust survivors - back to Europe.[24] When it came out, Uris's book aroused the public's interest in the fate of that ship and its passengers.[25]

Others credited the book for being an "antidote to the public silence of American Jews" after Israel became a state ten years earlier. "Something fundamental changed among American Jews as a result of the book," writes historian Matthew Silver. Jews were now able to reconnect to a "resurrected" Jewish homeland after two thousand years, he said.[26]

The appeal of Exodus impacted Jews as well as non-Jews. Liberal Jews, writes anthropologist Jonathan Boyarin, used the Exodus narrative to connect their sympathy for the new state of Israel with their sympathy for the civil rights struggle of American blacks.[27] Black author Julius Lester recalled that after reading the book its effect was "so extraordinary that I wanted to go and fight for Israel, even die, if need be, for Israel." He explained:

Israel spoke to the need I had as a young black man for a place where I could be free of being an object of hatred. I did not wish I were Jewish, but was glad that Jews had a land of their own, even if blacks didn't.[7]

The book also affected the political relationship of certain countries to their Jewish populations, most of whom died during the Holocaust. Exodus describes in detail the plight of Jews living in Eastern European countries, such as Poland. Poland had dozens of concentration camps while it was occupied by the Nazis. Its government saw Uris's book as thereby "anti-Polish", and defaming the country's honor. The government subsequently began removing printed references to Polish informers and the country's indifference to the fate of Jews, while describing accounts of Polish aid to Jews during those years.[28]

The Jewish population in the

mimeograph machine, and by the time tens of thousands had been distributed, the samizdat version of Exodus became a source of inspiration. "The enormous significance of Exodus to the growth and stimulation of the Jewish movement," writes historian Leonard Schroeter, "can hardly be overstated."[19]

Historian Aviva Halamish notes that the book describes the emigration of Jews to Palestine with a "heartrending story of genuine, unassuming heroism."[25] Eileen Battersby of the Irish Times said the story "cast an emotive, bombastic spell" on readers,[29] while journalist Quentin Reynolds said Exodus was exciting both "as a novel and as a historical document."[30]

Alan Elsner of the Jewish Journal describes his own re-reading of the book as "disturbing and unsettling in many ways."

King Christian X donning a yellow star in solidarity with the Jews of Denmark.[31]

Eric Homberger of The Guardian, describing Uris as a "master storyteller" and "educator of the American public in the Zionist interpretation of modern Jewish history," noted some

literary license with historical facts and some stereotypical characters.[6] Writer Saul Bellow admits that while some reviewers feel that the book was not of high literary caliber, it was nonetheless effective as a document: "We need such documents now," he said.[7]

Criticism

The book was first criticised in 1960 by Aziz S. Sahwell of the Arab Information Center for historical inaccuracies and its depiction of Arabs.

Socialist-Zionist propaganda that Israel could have sought".[34] Norman Finkelstein espoused a similar view as Robert Fisk, in his 2008 work Beyond Chutzpah.[35] In addition, Rashid Khalidi has stated that the book has served "to confirm and deepen preexisting prejudices" about Palestinians and Arabs in general.[38]

See also

  • "Babylon" (Mad Men): Don Draper reads the book throughout, and others mention its upcoming film release and bestseller status.
  • Wladislaw Dering sued Leon Uris for libel because of allegations made against Dering in the novel. This lawsuit inspired the fictionalized account of a lawsuit that formed the basis of Uris' later bestselling novel, QB VII (1970).[23]
  • Bay Area thrash metal band Exodus named themselves after the novel.[39][40][41]

References

  1. ^ a b Exodus special edition, Amazon books description
  2. ^ Nadel 2010, p. Prologue notes.
  3. ISBN 978-0-86547-995-1. [1]
  4. ISBN 978-0-86547-995-1
    .
  5. ISBN 0-313-29462-3
    .
  6. ^ a b Homberger, Eric. "Leon Uris: Obituary", The Guardian, June 24, 2003
  7. ^ a b c Gurock, Jeffrey. American Jewish History: The Colonial and Early National Periods...Volume 1, Taylor & Francis (1998) pp. 78–79
  8. ISBN 978-1-55652-239-0
    . Leon Uris's vastly popular 1950s novel Exodus was actually commissioned by the New York public relations firm of Edward Gottlieb to 'create a more sympathetic attitude toward Israel.'
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-0-937165-08-9
    . In the early 1950s, an American public relations man, Edward Gottlieb, seeking to improve Israel's image in the United States, hit upon the idea of hiring a writer to go to Israel and write an heroic novel about the new country. The writer was Leon Uris, and his novel, Exodus, became a huge best-seller. Moreover, the highly romanticized novel later became a movie starring Paul Newman. It was a box office smash hit. The fact that Uris's book totally distorted reality and ignored the basic injustice involved in the West imposing on the Middle East a solution to its own problems was completely overlooked.
  10. ISBN 1-56656-388-7
    . Shaheen does not identify the person or collection of persons who sought Gottlieb's assistance.
  11. ISBN 978-0-520-92236-5
    . ...few pieces of fiction have had as deep an impact on the U.S. public as did the 1960 movie Exodus and the 1958 Leon Uris novel on which it was based. The idea for the book began with a prominent public-relations consultant who in the early 1950s decided that the United States was too apathetic about Israel's struggle for survival and recognition, selected Uris, and sent him to Israel with instructions to soak up the atmosphere and create a novel. It was an astute public-relations scheme.
  12. ISBN 978-1-62371-006-4
    .
  13. ISBN 978-0-87491-732-1
    . In the early 1950s, when the newly formed State of Israel was struggling for recognition in the court of world opinion, America was largely apathetic. Gottlieb, who at the time headed his own public relations firm, suddenly had a hunch about how to create a more sympathetic attitude toward Israel. He chose a writer and sent him to Israel with instructions to soak in the atmosphere of the country and create a novel about it. The book turned out to be Exodus, by Leon Uris.
  14. ^ a b God, Guns and Israel: Britain, The First World War And The Jews in the Holy City, Jill Hamilton, p. 181: "Two months after the tenth anniversary a novel was published in America that changed the public perception of Israel and the Jews. Exodus by the Jewish US ex-marine Leon Uris became an international publishing phenomenon, the biggest best seller in the United States since Gone with the Wind. Both the novel and the subsequent movie thrust Israel into the lives of millions, and with it initiated a new sympathy for the young country."
  15. ^ Gonshak, 2011, p. 1
  16. ^ a b c d Elsner, Alan. "Re-reading leon Uris' Exodus", Jewish Journal, April 18, 2013
  17. ^ a b Helms, Bonnie A. 150 Great Books, Walch Publishing (1986) p. 99
  18. ^ Darby, William. Necessary American Fictions: Popular Literature of the 1950s, Popular Press (1987) p. 93
  19. ^ a b c d Schroeter, Leonard. The Last Exodus, Univ. of Washington Press (1979) pp. 64-65
  20. ^ Ashkenazi, Eli (April 27, 2008). "Yossi Harel, commander of Exodus, dies at 90". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 2008-06-01. Retrieved 2008-04-27.
  21. ^ Exodus Book 1, Chapter 23
  22. ^ Exodus Book 4, Chapter 6
  23. ^ a b c Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (June 25, 2003). "Leon Uris, 78, Dies; Wrote Sweeping Novels Like 'Exodus'". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  24. ISBN 978-9652295170.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  25. ^
    ISBN 0815605161
    .
  26. ^ Silver 2010, p. 22.
  27. ^ Boyarin, Jonathan. Palestine and Jewish History, Univ. of Minnesota Press (1996) pp. 59–60
  28. ^ Wyman, David S., and Rosenzveig, Charles H. The World Reacts to the Holocaust, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press (1996) p. 123
  29. ^ Battersby, Ellen. "Time to read a good long book", The Irish Times, July 5, 2015
  30. ^ Cain, Kathleen. Leon Uris: A Critical Companion, Greenwood Publishing Group (1998) p. 11
  31. ^ Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson. The King and the Star. Myths created during the Occupation of Denmark
  32. ^ Aziz S. Sahwell, Exodus: A Distortion of Truth, Arab Information Center, 1960
  33. JSTOR 2536952
  34. ^ a b The Independent, Robert Fisk: If the Nobel Peace Prize can be handed to Obama, why not hand it to the Israeli Defence Force?, 10 August 2014
  35. ^ a b Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Norman G. Finkelstein, 2008, p2-3, quote: "Putting aside its apologetics for Zionism, the sheer racism of Uris's blockbuster bears recalling. The Arabs, their villages, their homes—to the last, they're "stinking" or engulfed in "overwhelming stench" and "vile odors." Arab men just "lay around" all day "listless"—that is, when they're not hatching "some typical double-dealing scheme which seemed perfectly legitimate to the Arab," or resorting to "the unscrupulous ethics of the Arab ... the fantastic reasoning that condoned every crime short of murder," or "becom[ing] hysterical at the slightest provocation." As for Palestine itself before the Jews worked wonders, it was "worthless desert in the south end and eroded in the middle and swamp up north"; "a land of festering, stagnated swamps and eroded hills and rock-filled fields and unfertile earth caused by a thousand years of Arab and Turkish neglect. ... There was little song or laughter or joy in Arab life. ... In this atmosphere, cunning, treachery, murder, feuds and jealousies became a way of life. The cruel realities that had gone into forming the Arab character puzzled outsiders. Cruelty from brother to brother was common." Truth be told, not much has changed in official Zionist propaganda"
  36. ^ "Propaganda and war" Archived 2013-10-23 at the Wayback Machine, Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly, 30 August – 5 September 2001, Issue No.549: "The most disturbing thing is that hardly any of the questioned Americans knew anything at all about the Palestinian story, nothing about 1948, nothing at all about Israel's illegal 34-year military occupation. The main narrative model that dominates American thinking still seems to be Leon Uris's 1950 novel Exodus."
  37. ISBN 978-0-292-71732-9
  38. OCLC 1090697006
    .
  39. ISBN 978-0-312-64989-0
    .
  40. ^ "Exodus. Blood On The Dance Floor". FrankenSounds. January 4, 2015. Archived from the original on 14 August 2016. Retrieved 27 June 2016.
  41. ^ Folgar, Abel (April 24, 2015). "Through it All, Tom Hunting Sees Exodus as a "Brotherhood"". New Times Broward-Palm Beach. Retrieved 27 June 2016.

Further reading

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Exodus_(Uris_novel)&oldid=1218505301"