Exodus (Uris novel)

Exodus is a novel written in 1958 by American novelist Leon Uris about the founding of the state of Israel, based on the name of the 1947 immigration ship Exodus. The story unfolds with the protagonist, Ari Ben Canaan, hatching a plot to transport Jewish refugees from a British detention camp in Cyprus to Palestine. The operation is carried out under the auspices of the Mossad. The book then goes on to trace the histories of the various main characters and the ties of their personal lives to the birth of the new Jewish state.

A film based on the novel was directed by Otto Preminger in 1960 featuring Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan. It focused mainly on the escape from Cyprus and subsequent events in Palestine/Israel. Template:Spoiler

Main Characters

The main strength of the book is its vivid description of different people and the conflicts in their lives. As in several of Uris's novels, some of the fictional characters are partially based upon one or more historical personages, or act as metaphors for the various peoples who helped to build modern Israel.

Ari Ben Canaan

The character around whom the story is woven. Ben Canaan was born and raised on a kibbutz, but goes on to become one of the mainstays of the Israeli freedom movement. His father is Barak Ben Canaan (formerly Jossi Rabinsky, born in the Russian Pale of Settlement), head of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. His uncle is Akiva (formerly Yakov Rabinsky), leader of 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 engaged to a young woman, Dafna, who was tortured 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 (underground intelligence and military operation), Ari is extremely creative in devising techniques to bring Jews from all over the world to Palestine - more than allowed by the British quota. During World War 2, he served as an officer in the British army and he uses this experience to benefit his activities. This is his main occupation until Israel gains freedom, when he joins the Israeli army and is assigned to the Negev desert. He sees himself as part of a new breed of Jew who will not 'turn the other cheek'. He may be at least partially based on Yitzhak Rabin. His father is probably based partially on David Ben Gurion and Yigal Allon, and his uncle partially on Menachem Begin.

Katherine "Kitty" Fremont

An American nurse newly widowed, she meets Ari Ben Canaan in Cyprus. Grieving for her lost husband and the recent death of her daughter due to polio, Kitty develops a maternal attachment toward Karen Hansen Clement, a German refugee in a Cyprus displaced persons 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.

Bruce Sutherland

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 has a stifling, formal manner of speech. Internally, he is torn between his sympathies with the fellow Jews he is required to guard and his duties as a British officer; the horrors he witnessed when his battalion liberated Buchenwald 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. This facet may be based on the activities of Mickey Marcus.

Karen Hansen Clement

A German teenaged girl who was brought up for a while by foster parents in Denmark. She was sent there by her family when Hitler rose to power in Germany. Her family were subsequently interned in concentration camps, where most of them met their end. Karen does meet her father again in Israel, but he is a broken man who is unable to communicate or recognise his daughter. The experience leaves her unnerved and shattered. Despite this, she maintains her gentle and dainty personality. In Cyprus, we see the beginnings of a romance between her and Dov Landau, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto and of Auschwitz. At the very end of the book, she is murdered by terrorists on the night before Pesach.

Dov Landau

A quiet, introverted teenaged boy who lost his entire family to the Holocaust, Dov has not merely survived the horrors of ghetto life in Warsaw and of concentration camp in Auschwitz, but has learnt from them to turn circumstances to his advantage. A master forger, he narrowly escapes the gas chamber by displaying to the camp doctor his talent. The doctor is not able to tell the difference between his own signature and the five copies that Dov makes. He does work as a forger, but is then assigned to work as a Sonderkommando, which he barely survives. After the camp is liberated, he ends up in Cyprus and eventually Israel as part of the escape organised by Ari ben Canaan. He joins the Maccabees (based on the Irgun), a Jewish terrorist organisation that is headed by Ari's paternal uncle. He is being driven by a thirst for revenge "that only God or a bullet can stop". Karen is the only person for whom he is able to feel any emotion. He later becomes a Major in the army of Israel, and unofficially engaged to Karen, but after she is murdered, he forces himself to go on working for Israel, as she would have wished.

Jordana Ben Canaan (peripheral character)

Ari's fiery younger sister and a leader of the Palmach (Haganah elite unit), she is engaged to 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. She changes her opinion when Kitty saves Ari's life and later becomes more identified with Israel's struggle.

Criticisms

Although the novel has been a tremendous success, it has been criticised on a number of counts. For example, historic persons interact with fictious ones leading to a distorted historic picture. And the real Exodus did not leave from Cyprus, contrary to the novel. It also contains a number of passages which many people would regard as anti-Arab racism. Furthermore, with its negative comments about the Yiddish language, it takes a very negative attitude to the whole Diaspora Jewish experience.