num_pages: 276
description: This is a book abo_ut a search—thesearch of an idea for its rightful home. Writing for her three teenage sons,Lynne Reid Banks traces the history of a fundamental idea—that of Jewishness- which has outlived all the world's attempts to deprive it of its roots in nationhood. With sympathy and insight, she tells the story of the survival of a people who retained their identity for thousands of years while scattered throughout the world.Lynne Reid Banks argues that with- out a territory there can be no nationhood, and that without nationhood persecuted people can find no selfrespect and no true dignity. In this book she follows the wanderings of the Jews from their earliest dispersions in Biblical times through recurrent oppression and isolation to the founding of the ]ewish state in 1948. She examines the origins of Zionism and the gathering movement of return to Israel, and tells the story of the ﬁrst set- tlements and their heroic struggles for survival. Finally she gives an account of the tragic and epic events of her own lifetime—the “deadly thirties,” the British Mandate, the Second World War, and the ﬁrst Israeli-Arab war fol- lowing the declaration of Israeli independence. . I Lynne Reid Banks is not a ]ew bybirth, but her commitment began in the post-war years, long before her marriage to an Israeli. In her foreword to this passionate and deeply felt history of the Jewish people, she tells her “I d0n’t want to write propaganda. And yet I want you to understand. So this must be a very personal book, even though I shall try my best all through it not to let my love for my subjectdistort my view or my writing. Be- cause, even more important to me than you three coming to love Israel as I do, is that you shall not love it blindly, but as wisely, as bravely and as perceptively as possible.”
language: English
title: Letters To My Israeli Sons: The Story of Jewish Survival
titlecomplete: Letters To My Israeli Sons: The Story of Jewish Survival
ratings_count: 1
publisher: Franklin Watts