Dawn of the Promised Land: The Creation of Israel

by Ben Wicks

In 1917, when the British government declared that it "favored the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people, " it provoked an exodus to the nation of Israel - an exodus that has proven unstoppable. Dawn of the Promised Land chronicles the ensuing years - stretching into decades - when hundreds of thousands of Jews streamed into the promised land. Both intellectuals and illiterates, Easterners and Europeans, these pilgrims left behind friends, families, and established lives. Representing every class and nationality, they were at heart united by their idealism and, as the Second World War loomed closer, by the belief that their efforts alone would liberate Jews from the horror of Nazi persecution. Including the personal experiences of some of Israel's greatest figures - among them Shimon Peres, David Ben-Gurion, and Yitzhak Rabin - Dawn of the Promised Land weaves the voices of pioneers together with historic details of Israel under British rule, the eventual capitulation of the royal crown, and the drafting of the constitution.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 20, 1997

About the author

Ben Wicks was a London-born Canadian cartoonist, illustrator, journalist and author. He was a saxophone player who toured throughout Europe in a band with Leonard Bigg before emigrating to Canada in 1957. There, he initially worked as a milkman in Calgary and as a musician in the Canadian Army. His first cartoons were published in the Saturday Evening Post.

Wicks settled in Toronto in 1963, where he became a cartoonist with the Toronto Telegram. His topical cartoon 'The Outcasts' (later retitled to simply 'Wicks') was at its height syndicated to over 80 Canadian newspapers and 100 American. He moved over to the Toronto Star in 1971. He also illustrated the children's book series 'Katie and Orbie', written by his daughter Susan.

Wicks was additionally a humanitarian and TV personality, who even hosted his own show on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the 1970s. He also had his own pub in Toronto's Cabbagetown district. He died of cancer at the age of 73 in 2000.

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tells of the birth of Israel, and the struggle of millions of Jews, from both Europe and the Middle East to get to Israel and to adapt to life in the re-established Jewish homeland.

As well as dozens of interviews with Jews who relate their experiences of getting to the Land of Israel, and how they adapted to life there, the author also gives us an account of the struggles of the Jews for their homeland, mainly covering the period from when the British took control of the Holy Land in 1917, to the the elections to the First Knesset of Israel, in 1949, after the Jews of Israel had beaten a vastly larger and better armed force of 6 Arab armies, bent on anihilation of Israel's Jews.

We learn of the vast immigration of Arabs into the Holy Land, from other countries (Between 1922 and 1925, for example, almost thirty thousand Arabs came into Israel from Syria, Transjordan and Iraq).

We learn of the vast immigration of Arabs into the Holy Land, from other countries (Between 1922 and 1925, for example, almost thirty thousand Arabs came into Israel from Syria, Transjordan and Iraq).

The Jews who had returned to their ancient homeland, faced problems like hunger, disease, unempoyment, and language problems as well as Arab pogroms.

Arab pogroms were launched against Jews in 1920, 1921,1929 and 1936-1939.

"Old hatreds surfaced and expresed themselves in violence.

One atrocity saw forty new immigrants murdered and mutilated. Gangs of Arab youths ran amok in the streets of Jerusalem, and Jews were murdered and raped in the Old City.The setttlements in Upper Galilee fared no better: They became a favourite target and although Ben-Gurion did his best to continue to offer the hand of peace to the Arabs, begging them to carry on living in peace beside their Jewish fellow workers the violence escalated".

The Pogroms of 1936-1939 were orchestrated by the Arab Higher Committee, led by Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini, and encourgaed, aided and abetted by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

This led to increased British repression of Jews in the Holy Land, and the restriction of the entry of Jews into the "Palestine" Mandate.

The White Paper of 1939 barred Jewish entry into "Palestine", and hundreds of thousands of Jews were turned back by the British to perish in Hitler's inferno, leading to great resentment of the Jews for the British colonists.

This led to resistance by the Jewish freedom fighters of the Irgun and Lehi. The Jews of Israel did however raise a Jewish Brigade to help the Allies defeat the Nazis in Europe.

After the war, hundreds of thousands of holocaust survivors were further interred by the British in concentration camps, while the British government of Attlee and Bevin, did all they could to make sure the Jewish State was stillborn, helping the Arabs in their plans to drive the Jews out of the Land of Israel.

After the British pulled out, and the UN awarded a tiny state to the Jews, 6 Arab armies descended on the reborn nation, with Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha declaring to the world's assembled media that "this would be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which would be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."

The Jewish survivors fought back, and after losing a tenth of their population, won.

At a ceremony to pay tribute to those who had given their lives in the war, Ben-Gurion told their families that "when future generations come to write the annals of Israel, they will write not in letters of gold, but in letters of love and nonour and glory; and they will list your heroic sons together with you, the fathers and mothers who raised for us, the people of Israel, such sons."

now much work had to be done. Millions of poverty-stricken refugees, from the holocaust in Europe, and from Arab persecution throughout the Middle East, had to be housed and absorbed into the re-born Jewish homeland.

The Jews had re-established themselves in their ancient homeland, as foretold in the Bible.

[Kathryn Reed · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it.