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Summary
Chapter One
News of the Exodus sailing quickly makes its way around the globe. It is decided that the children will enjoy the first night of Chanukah before the ship leaves for Palestine. While the ship is prepared, the doctors attend to the children’s medical needs. While Kitty tries to decide whether or not she will follow Karen to Palestine, David tells Kitty about Ari’s background.
Chapter Two
In 1884, Simon and Rachel Rabinsky live in the Jewish Pale in Russia with their two sons, Jossi and Yakov. The Jewish people have endured a long history of persecution in Russia, and the Pale is a large ghetto where Jewish people were forced to live. The people living in the Pale have little contact with Russians, speak Yiddish, and are very poor. Everything in their lives revolves around the synagogue. Simon, a bootmaker, has great respect for the Talmud and passes this on to his sons. The family reverently observes the Sabbath.
Chapter Three
Yakov, Simon’s younger son, has been going to meetings held by the Lovers of Zion, even though he knows his father would not approve. The organization champions defense of the ghettos and a return to Palestine. Russia is suffering overall because it is undeveloped and backward, and a revolution starts brewing. The government uses the Jewish people as scapegoats to distract the people from the tyrannical leadership of the Czar Alexander II. When the czar is assassinated, it is learned that one of the perpetrators is a Jewish girl. This gives the Russian government the excuse they need for years of horror.
Yakov finally convinces Jossi to attend a Lovers of Zion meeting. Yakov gets swept up in the promises of Lovers of Zion right away, but Jossi is more contemplative and slower to move to action. Also, he does not want to make any radical changes out of respect for his father. The boys finally talk about the meetings with their father. Simon tells them that these ideas of escaping ghettos and fleeing to Palestine are not new and Jewish people have spoken of it for years. Simon tells his sons that their mission from God is to protect His law. Yakov doesn’t question this, only how men interpret these laws.
Chapter Four
An anti-Jewish pogrom organized by Andreev, headmaster of a Russian high school, rips through the Pale. Simon is killed by a mob of students as he tries to protect a copy of the Torah from his synagogue. Jossi mourns his father, but Yakov becomes even more filled with hate. He goes to the home of Andreev one night and kills him. Jossi and Yakov have difficulty hiding as they are hunted by police because the other Jews in the Pale are already so terrified. Jossi’s shock of red hair also makes the brothers conspicuous. The elders of the ghetto tell the brothers they have to leave because they will only stoke violence if they stay. The brothers decide they will walk to Palestine.
Jossi and Yakov, just twenty and eighteen years old respectively, leave home and walk for over three years. They survive by stealing food and staying with strangers. Wherever they go, they ask if Jewish people live there because they know they will be taken in by their people. As they travel though different countries, the Jewish people have different cultures and ways of life, but they are united in their knowledge of the Torah and their respect for the Sabbath. The brothers finally arrive in Palestine. Jossi weeps and Yakov quotes the Bible.
Chapter Five
The valley looks beautiful from up above. When they get down to the villages, it is not as inviting. The villages are dirty and crowded, and the Arab people are wary of the newcomers. Kammal, the muktar of Abu Yesha, directs them to the visitor center where they learn of the Jewish settlements. These too are disappointing. The brothers become disillusioned in light of the stories they were told about Palestine. They become even more uncomfortable when they come across ultra-Orthodox Jewish people in Jerusalem. Their fanaticism makes the brothers feel like outsiders. For the next five years, the brothers work on the docks in Jaffa and in the fields of the settlements, but they are aimless. They become distanced from their religion and long for the companionship of Jewish people from Europe.
Analysis
Once it is decided that Exodus will sail, Kitty struggles over her decision about whether to go to Palestine. Kitty is a native of Indiana and married young. She never expected to be in this position. She still holds her prejudices and is not comfortable with the idea of working with Jewish people in a foreign place where she will feel like an outsider. However, she is drawn to Palestine because she wants to follow Karen and because of her unresolved feelings for Ari. Until now, Kitty has helped the children at the camps and on-board Exodus, but she has also behaved in a selfish way. She tries to keep Karen from going to Palestine with the ultimate plan of bringing her to America. She still cannot understand what she considers the Jewish people’s obsession with Palestine. When Kitty asks David to help her understand Ari, David decides the best way to describe Ari is to go back in time a generation and tell Kitty about Ari’s father. David knows better than most that an understanding of history, of where people come from, is the best way to understand them.
Jossi and Yakov Rabinsky, brothers who will change the fate of the Jewish people, grow up in an enormous Russian ghetto. Like the Landaus, the Rabinskys always knew a life of discrimination. Ironically, Russian Jewish people enjoy fleeting periods of freedom when Moslems control part of Russia, but in the centuries since Islamic rule, pogroms targeting Jewish people have begun to occur. Simon Rabinsky, the boys’ father, is deeply religious and keeps his sons close to their faith. He teaches them inclusivity as well, allowing them to study not only the Torah, but the books of the New Testament of the bible which Jewish people do not accept as part of their holy book. Although their ghetto is not as dangerous as Dov’s for example, Jossi and Yakov are somewhat hardened by their existence. Their lives are about survival, and they have very little joy. They hope that the boys harbor comes from the Lovers of Zion meetings that they attend. This is where they develop a longing for the promised land of Palestine.
Yakov is often frustrated by the contemplative nature of both his father and his older brother. Simon and Jossi are measured and do not do anything in a rash way, as opposed to Yakov who is full of hot-headed action. The bible stories of Jewish glory fill Yakov’s mind, and he increasingly wants to be in Palestine fighting for the freedom of the Jewish people. He envisions himself in Palestine, alongside the noble ghosts of Jewish heroes and warriors like Judah Maccabee, Simon Bar Giora, and Bar Kochba. His most cherished hero is Rabbi Akiva, who was martyred at Caesarea. The last piece of advice Simon imparts to his sons before he is killed in a pogrom is to listen to God’s laws and not follow false prophets. As a result, for the rest of his life, a fervid Yakov often quotes the bible and keeps the stories of biblical prophecies alive by sharing them. Simon’s advice and Yakov’s action represents the way Jewish people have kept their culture alive during the millennia-long diaspora. The dreams of a young Yakov to be a hero of the Jewish people are tragic though, when considered against his later life when his impetuous nature causes chaos and division among his people.
Jossi and Yakov’s expectations are high as they leave their home in Russia, but the reality of the journey is difficult. The brothers’ bond grows stronger during the trials of the trip as the two very different personalities bring their respective strengths to their struggle. With his fiery spirit of determination, Yakov firmly encourages Jossi, reminding him of their noble mission, while the physically stronger Jossi at times literally carries his younger brother over treacherous terrain. This dynamic will remain part of their relationship for the rest of their lives. Yakov will try to inspire action and Jossi will try to protect Yakov from himself. When they arrive and take in Palestine from a hilltop, the brothers feel a mystical connection to the land of Palestine. They know that their lives will be dedicated to this land and its people. However, the reality that exists below is sobering for the brothers and they feel betrayed by what they were told about Palestine at their Lovers of Zion meetings. It is hard for them to believe that a land so rich in history and faith should be so dry and listless. The Eretz Israel in their mind does not match the reality of the land. The brothers, and especially Jossi, will come to understand that they must help create the Israel that they have dreamed of. Although they do not yet have direction, the first important step in the brothers’ work is accomplished. They have arrived in Palestine, and they are living freely. This point vitally underscores an important theme in the novel, that freedom from persecution affords Jewish people the opportunity to find their dignity in a life of work and sacrifice.
