The Tenth Prayer

The Tenth Prayer
by Stephen G. Esrati
Xlibris Corp.
ISBN 0-7388-2154-3
$16.00 (plus shipping)

THE CHARACTERS IN THE TENTH PRAYER AND WHAT IT'S ABOUT:
• Genia
  Yevgenia Maximovna Koganova is the daughter of a member of the Soviet Politburo who is purged by Stalin. She is smuggled out of the Soviet Union and taken to Palestine, where Maxim Koganov’s brother lives in Golania, a kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee. She is brought up in Golania through adolescence and into young womanhood, living in the same room with boys until well past puberty. She marries someone from another kibbutz, whose members belong to a different political party, and he moves into Golania. When he votes as he always has, he is evicted from the kibbutz. To keep her husband, Genia leaves the kibbutz.

• Jack
  Jacob Frumkin is a German refugee from Hitler who enlists in the U.S. Army to get even for the death of his parents and grandparents. After the war, he joins the effort to smuggle surviving Jews out of Europe to Palestine, where the British have thrown up a blockade.
  He is ordered to spend some leave in Venice with a woman soldier who has deserted from the Jewish Brigade to work in the illegal immigration effort.
  When the U.S. Army discovers his double life, he quickly gets discharged and sails for Palestine on one of the illegal ships.

• Naomi
  The hunted broadcaster of the Voice of Fighting Zion, broadcasting station of the Irgun. The British find the transmitter for the station in Naomi’s bedroom and she flees the country, then returns once the British leave Palestine.

• Yokhanan
  Yokhanan Galili is a native of Rosh Pina in Galilee, a high-ranking officer of Haganah, and an atheist. He battles the Turkish system the British left in place, whereby each religious denomination has total control over matters of birth, marriage, divorce, inheritance, or burial.
  As a member of the Tel Aviv City Council, Yokhanan wants to overthrow what he terms theocracy. He marries an American Baptist and they have a baby. The baby dies and cannot be buried anywhere because of the intermarriage.

• Dave
  David Gordon, a young New York Jew, was beaten up by the German-American Bund. He goes to the 92nd Street YHCA to learn how to defend himself and gets recruited into Betar, a nationalist Zionist youth organization, of which he soon becomes a leader. After Pearl Harbor, he enlists in the Army Air Force and gets shot down over Ploesti, Romania. Once he is back in civilian life, he enrolls at M.I.T. and, at the same time, takes command of a Betar chapter in Boston.
  In the spring of 1947, he heads for Palestine to join the fight against the invading Arabs. When his ship reaches Beirut, he and all other Jewish males are taken hostage by Lebanon.
  [This part of the story is partly autobiographical, as the author was one of the 61 hostages in Lebanon. Since Esrati was first off the ship, he was the first American hostage in Lebanon.]
  Dave is repatriated and jumps ship in the Azores, hoping to join an Irgun ship in the harbor. He is nabbed and his U.S. passport is confiscated by Washington, D.C.

• Manny
  Emanuel Cardozo, the son of a Colorado millionaire, becomes one of the leaders of the American League for a Free Palestine, a group that makes a distinction between Jews in Palestine (whom they term Hebrews), and Jews in America (whom it terms Jews).
  Manny, a diesel engineer, sails the Sally Jane to Israel but breaks down in the Azores, where he takes Dave aboard.

And then it gets complicated.

Read the first chapter of THE TENTH PRAYER.

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