Customer Reviews

From the Nile to the Jordan

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This is a sad but accurate account of the tragic events that led to the Second Exodus of the Jews of Egypt, which took place in the 1940's, 50's and 60's. Author Ada Aharoni captured the thoughts and emotions of youthful Jews growing up in Egypt in volatile times of national liberation and Arab-Jewish conflict, and their eventual forced departure to Israel.

Ada Aharoni is well qualified to write about this. She grew up as a Jew in Egypt herself, and both she and her husband were forced to leave the country and now live in Israel, where they teach at Technion University in Haifa.

The story takes on very difficult emotional and historical issues and presents a very sound explanation from the point of view of idealistic young Egyptians Jews, as well as their parents and grandmothers.

The most wonerful and unusual thing about Ada's book is that in spite of the sadness and tragedy described in this story, Ada and the heroine of her story "Inbar" are full of hope for a future without war and violence in the Middle East. Professor Aharoni dedicates a great deal of effort to promoting the culture of peace and non-violence, and peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews.

I loved this book as well as the author. I highly recommend it for those who enjoy a good story based on real historical events, and for those interested in the past and future of peace in the Middle East.

This is the most exciting and informative novel I have read in years! I didn't even know that there was a Second Exodus of the Jews from Egypt in my own times, and Ada Aharoni has described this astonishing historical period in a convincing and beautiful way.

This book has convinced me that author Ada Aharoni is a major universal writer. From the Nile to the Jordan is a cause for delight, gratitude and celebration. She is exceptionally brave, and she dares tell a story that no others have ventured before. Her story shines with deep and challenging truths about Middle East history,life, women, and the vision of a world beyond war and conflict.

She shrinks from no emotional, ethical or moral complexity. Each of the characters she describes are full of life and vitality. Inbar, the beautiful and courageous heroine dares to have a love affair with handsome but pessimistic Raoul, a fugitive from the Nazi Holocaust, though it is unthinkable in her society. Judge Mosseri, her father, loses all his property but not his dignity, when he is exiled from Egypt together with his family, after the Israeli War of Independence. And Nona Zina, refuses to be exiled and crashes her fine elegant china together with her life.

When Inbar finally finds Raoul in Jerusalem after she thought she had lost him forever, the reader realizes that they both together symbolize the renaissance of a people in their long lost land. The charming and rich descriptions of the scenery, the people, the texture of life in Egypt and then in Israel, are so colorful and convincing that they made me feel I was there and part of the story. In one short phrase, Ada Aharoni is a marvelous writer.

Born in Cairo, Egypt, and spending some years in the US, Ada Aharoni now lives in Haifa, Israel. She won several prestigious prizes and awards, and she was elected one of the 100 World Heroines, in Rochester, New York, in celebration of the Women's Movement founded by Susan B. Anthony. I have read all of Ada Aharoni's books and I highly recommend them. I give five stars to each of them.

This is a marvelous, moving document of Jewish life in Cairo, before the creation of the Jewish State of Israel. A young girl, father and grandmother live a wonderful life in Egypt, where the father is a prominent attorney. At that time, the Jews had a rich cultural life in Egypt, with theatre, concerts, the best of all European culture. However, once the State of Israel was founded, and Palistinians emigrated to Egypt, life for the Egyptian Jews was made a living hell. Jews had to sell their property for next to nothing and flee to whatever country would take them. The young people went to Israel, but some of the older generation went to Europe. Ada's father had his money transferred to a Swiss bank, and when he went to the Swiss bank to get h is money, he was told that the Egyptian government had confiscated all his money, INBAR's father left the bank a broken man and died shortly afterwards. He was buried in a pauper's grave in Paris. INBAR's grandmother, a wonderful and colorful character, refused to leave Cairo and all her beautiful possessions, and threw herself down a flight of steps in her home and killed herself. The novel is a brilliant story of the sadness of emigration, of leaving one's home and moving to another country. In Israel, she met her beloved, Raoul, and together they built a beautiful life in their new homeland.