Abram: The Life of an Israeli Patriot [Hardcover]

Henry Orenstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2010

This is a biography of a young man who is not really sure what to do with his life, who gets thrown into the whirlwind of World War II and only then learns about life, about courage, and about honor. A boy, who grows up in poisonous, anti-Sematic surroundings in Poland, he travels to Palestine and unexpectedly finds a purpose in life. then everything changes for Abram with the outbreak of World War II. He joins the British Army as a private and a sequence of incredible events follow- he serves in the "suicide comando" and is court-martialed for hitting a British Sargeant Major. After the war ends, Abram, now a major in the British Army, organizes the transport of tens of thousands of concentration camp survivors to Palestine. he does this right under the noses of British intelligence, and is later detained for months while being investigated. Finally, the story moves on to the War of Independence in Palestine, where Abram plays a critical part in establishing a secret road to supply the surrounded Jerusalem Jews- saving them from the Arabs. Abram tells of his fight with Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and its consequences. The incredible saga of Abram plays out against the stark reality of World War II and its aftermath. It will no doubt leave an indelible impression on the reader.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Abram Silberstein led a remarkable life in the turbulent 1940s, but his biographer and friend uses this book as an excuse to glibly recap the history of WWII and the rise of Israel. Except for a moment when both were boys in Poland, the author only knew Silberstein after the war. While he and Abram lost their families in the Holocaust, Orenstein did not share Abrams active life on the front lines of history as a teenage immigrant to Palestine, a volunteer in the British army, a daring commando fighting the Nazis in North Africa, a smuggler of concentration camp inmates into Palestine, or as the transportation specialist who broke the Arab siege of Jerusalem. And while this may sound nonetheless as though it would have to be the lively memoir of an extraordinary subject, Orenstein perversely sticks Abram in the backgroundin order to saturate the bulk of his pages with his own views of the major events and battles of the second half of this century. Orenstein, author of the Holocaust memoir I Shall Live (1987), is capable of writing simply and effectively, but most readers will undoubtedly prefer to look elsewhere for well-known highlights of the careers of Rommel, Mussolini, Hitler, and Churchill. Abram the die-hard Zionist is duly outraged at the ``American Armys Jewish officers lack of interest in what he and other Palestinian Jews were fighting so hard to accomplish.'' The book well describes the danger for Palestinian Jews of a German takeover of Egypt; also useful is Orensteins willingness to reassess the Zionist icon David Ben- Gurion. Abram opposed Ben-Gurions suicidal attack of Jordanian-held Latrun, which blockaded Jerusalem. After criticizing the future Israeli prime minister to his face, Abram helped to create the ``Burma Road,'' which saved Jerusalem from starvation. The brief tale of an interesting life couched in long stretches of irrelevancies. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Beaufort Books; 1St Edition edition (January 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0825305039
• ISBN-13: 978-0825305030
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,849,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)