The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine (Religion, Theology and the Holocaust) [Hardcover]

Aviva Halamish (Author), Ora Cummings (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

On the night of July 17, 1947, the ship Exodus, with 4,500 Holocaust survivors, was attempting to break through a British blockade of what was then Palestine. Several hours later the Exodus was attacked by the British navy, with British soldiers charging the ship but met by resistance. Three Jewish passengers were killed and dozens injured. Taken to the port of Haifa, the illegal immigrants were transferred to three deportation ships. Halamish's book examines what happened to the immigrants after they were denied admission: weeks spent on the three ships ("floating concentration camps"), their brutal removal from the ships by British soldiers in Hamburg, and their forced settlement in two hellish camps in northern Germany. Drawing on an impressive array of research materials, Halamish, on a human level, presents a stunning portrait of courage and heroism in the face of anguish and adversity. George Cohen

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hebrew

Product Details

• Hardcover: 313 pages
• Publisher: Syracuse Univ Pr (Sd); 1st edition (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815605161
• ISBN-13: 978-0815605164
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,572,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The REAL story, January 3, 2007

By 

Gilad Rosenberg (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine (Religion, Theology and the Holocaust) (Hardcover)

This is a very well researched historical account of the Exodus affair. It focuses on the immigrants themselves, thereby giving us an almost inside look on their lives and the difficulties they faced.

After reading Leon Uris' book Exodus, this book will give you the real story in all its complexity, which is perhaps even more fascinating than the fictional account. It is the most complete study of Exodus that has been published to date.

A note to "MDK", the previous reviewer, on the issue of calling the Hagana terrorists. To decide which acts should be considered terrorism and which should not, you would have to decide on a definition of terrorism. The definitions used by most countries, organizations and scholars, all include both the Hagana's operations and the Hamas' (try Googling "define:terror"). It is unreasonable to just decide that all Arab attacks should be considered terror and all Jewish attacks not, as you seem to believe.

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Historical revisionism?, August 17, 2003

By 

MDK "MDK" (NJ) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine (Paperback)

I must confess that I only read the first 60 pages of this book. I was bored with irrelevant details and could not finish.

However, Ms. Halamish does refer to the Irgun as "...the terrorists." She does not even credit them with being a legitimate opposition ("...this would put an end to the process of conciliation between the organized Jewish community and the terrorists.")

She also minimizes some of the heroic acts committed, for example in stating that some of the American volunteer crew members of the Exodus 1947 were motivated "...not by humanitarian or patriotic considerations alone, but also by a zest for adventure and a quest for meaning to their lives... an act of youthful rebellion." This is liberal slander; Some of those American "volunteers" rotted in DP camps in Cyprus while they could have been home in the USA.

Ms. Halamish trivializes heroic acts in other areas as well. She states "Obviously it was an exaggeration to believe that a handful of young people from Palestine, no matter how talented and devoted, were able to accomplish..." This comment refers to her "obvious" notion that the Haganah alone, being only a "handful" of young people, could have united the refugees in their devotion to the cause of Aliyah to the land of Israel, a group often rowdy and disobedient on their arrival to the ship.

Ms. Halamish does not seem to understand the definition of the word 'terrorist.' She must be using Yasser Arafat's definition. When an Arab blows up women and childeren, civilians, indiscriminately, in pizza parlors and buses, THAT IS TERRORISM. When Arafat's cronies murder schoolchildren in Northern Israel (remember the 1970's?) and hijack civilian jetliners from the civilized world, THAT IS TERRORISM.

When the British Govt. is illegally preventing Jewish survivors of the Holocaust from entering Palestine, a land lawfully promised to the Jews based on international law (remember the League of Nations and the British Mandate granted to Britain with the understanding that they would partition the land, originally including for the Jews what today is ALL of Jordan as well as the disputed territories), and the British reverse the blame and call Jewish immigration to Palestine "illegal," and the heroic Irgun and Stern gang attack British MILITARY targets, that is NOT terrorism.

When the Irgun attacked British MILITARY installations because of the monumentally illegal acts of the British, and warned their targets ahead of time, that is not terrorism.

Perhaps Ms. Halamish should have also mentioned ILLEGAL Arab immigration to Palestine, outlined in Joan Peters' FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL, instead of focusing on "illegal Jewish immigration." That might shed light on where the majority of todays "oppressed" Palestinians really came from.

May I recommend Ruth Gruber's far more readable EXODUS 1947: THE SHIP THAT LAUNCHED A NATION