Description

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To Die In Jerusalem is a novel that delves into the heart of the conflict between American diaspora Jews and the right-wing government of Israel. Morris Gruenwald is eight years old and living in the Kisvarda (Hungary) when the Jews of the town are sent to the death camp at Auschwitz. There, he watches his mother and younger sister marched off to the gas chamber. He survives and is smuggled to the shores of Palestine, evading the British blockade. He is sent to a kibbutz and fights in the 1948 war. Morris believes that his entire family is dead and that his future lies in Israel. He fights again in Israel's various wars against the Arabs - in Suez in 1956 and in Jerusalem in 1967. A random photograph of him praying at the newly-liberated Western Wall in 1967 is seen by his aunt, who left Kisvarda for the United States. His family brings him to America, where he becomes a pro-Israel Senator until an increasingly right-wing Israeli government and the feelings of his grandchildren bring him to the realization that he can no longer support an anti-democratic regime.