Exodus

Exodus (1958) is a historical novel by the Jewish American author Leon Uris. The novel follows the multigenerational story of a Jewish family in Palestine, giving the sweep of Jewish history from the First Aliyah in the 1880s to the modern state of Israel’s establishment in 1948. It focuses its greatest attention on the years from 1946 to 1948, following a group of Jewish agents and refugees as they first attempt to transport immigrants to Palestine past the British blockade, and then as they seek to aid the defense of the newly established state of Israel. Exodus became the largest bestseller the US had seen in more than 20 years, and was adapted into a 1960 film by Otto Preminger.

Exodus has sparked varied responses, with the book both hailed as one of the American public’s most important sources of information about Israel and also declaimed as being unbalanced in the favorable light in which it casts the events of 1948. While it accurately portrays (albeit in a fictionalized sense) some of the events leading up to Israeli independence, it neglects to give significant attention to the Palestinian side of the story, and in the few places where it does so, the novel’s perspective is largely negative.

This guide uses the 1958 edition produced by Doubleday.

Note: Readers should be aware of an important change in terminology that has occurred since the novel’s release. Prior to the second half of the 20th century, it was common practice to call anyone who had grown up in Palestine a Palestinian, whether Jewish or Arab, and so the novel refers to many of its Jewish characters as Palestinians. The people group that in modern parlance would normally be referred to as Palestinians are instead called Arabs in the novel.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide mention antisemitism, rape, the Holocaust, and other acts of violence. The text also contains stereotypical and offensive portrayals of Arab Palestinians.

Plot Summary

Exodus is a novel in five books, each of which offers a glimpse of a different aspect of the story of Israel’s rise as a nation. The story frames itself as a national epic in which the land of Palestine and the dream of a Jewish homeland become the central focus of the narrative, commanding more of the story’s attention than even the major characters do. While most of the narrative focuses on the period of 1946-48, it also includes long flashback sequences dealing with personal experiences and historical events from the 1880s onward, such that it encompasses the entire story of the Jewish people in Europe and Palestine across a 70-year span.

Book 1 is the longest of the five books. It introduces most of the main characters, including Ari Ben Canaan, Kitty Fremont, Karen Clement, and Dov Landau. In 1946, the British government, which oversees the Palestine Mandate, is catching and incarcerating Jewish refugees who attempt to reach Palestine. Some of these refugees are kept in containment camps on Cyprus, so undercover Jewish agencies, with Ari Ben Canaan as their leader, craft a plan to break them out and to cast Britain in an unfavorable light. As their plan comes together, the narrative also gives detailed backstories for two of the young refugees, Karen Clement and Dov Landau. Karen is a teenage girl who survived the Nazi occupations of World War II by being sent away to a foster family in Denmark, and she remained hidden there until the end of the war. In an attempt to track down any remaining members of her biological family, she offers her services in refugee camps and proves invaluable as a children’s aid worker.

Dov is a Polish Jew of Karen’s age, and he survived the war but suffered the worst of the Nazi atrocities. His family died in the ghetto and in concentration camps, and he is eventually sent to Auschwitz. After the war, he is broken and sullen, a silent and angry young man until Karen pierces his fierce exterior. These two become key players in the plot to free the refugees from Cyprus, with Dov assisting in the forging of fake documents and Karen organizing the children. The goal of the plan is to get 300 children out onto a boat prepared to run the blockade to Palestine but to have the British catch them in the harbor and force a standoff that would cast the entire British regime in a negative light. The plan plays out exactly as Ari foresees, and eventually the British bend to international pressure and allow the ship, christened the Exodus, to bring the children to Palestine.

Book 2 is almost entirely taken up by another extended flashback, and this one tells the story of Ari’s family from its earliest experience of Palestine in the 1880s. Ari’s father, Barak Ben Canaan (originally Jossi Rabinsky), grows up in the Pale of Settlement, the vast ghetto-region in eastern Europe in which Jews were permitted to live, but he and his brother Akiva (originally Yakov) are forced to flee in the aftermath of a violent pogrom. They make their way on foot to Palestine, where they both become leaders of the fledgling Jewish community. Barak favors a conciliatory approach with outside groups, while Akiva leans toward promoting a strong image through violent resistance, a duality that will characterize the two men throughout their lives.

Barak becomes one of the Jewish leaders at the forefront of international diplomacy, while Akiva founds a network of terrorist-inclined activists, known as the Maccabees. Barak also marries and raises children in Palestine, Ari and Jordana. Ari grows up to be a leader in his own right, serving in the earliest forms of the Jewish defense forces in Palestine.

Book 3 returns to the main narrative at the close of 1946, as the Exodus lands in Palestine and the characters take up their new positions throughout the land. Dov and Karen end up with many of the other children at Gan Dafna, a special settlement in northern Palestine, and Kitty also goes there to continue her work as a nurse and community organizer. Meanwhile, hostilities are ramping up between Jews and Arabs, and when Britain starts to favor the Arab side, resentment grows among the Jews. Political tensions escalate throughout Book 3, with Dov and Ari both facing significant consequences of imprisonment and injury as a result.

Book 4 brings the story of the Jewish community in Palestine to its climax, as it narrates both the international stage of diplomacy (in which Barak plays a major role) as well as the local warfare in Palestine. Against all odds, the Jews of Palestine prevail on both fronts. They secure a surprising victory on the international stage by receiving a successful UN vote for the partition of Palestine to establish a Jewish state. Once Israel declares its independence as a sovereign nation in May of 1948, they again secure a surprising victory by prevailing over the military forces of the surrounding Arab nations.

Book 5 is the shortest of the five books, and it brings some of the lingering plotlines to a sense of resolution. Ari and Kitty, who have had an up-and-down relationship characterized by infrequent meetings and charged with both attraction and misunderstanding, finally come to understand one another in a deeper way. Dov completes his transformation from a bitter and reclusive youth to a hopeful, outward-looking young man, largely thanks to Karen’s influence. The novel ends, however, in tragedy, as Karen dies in a raid.