THE TENTH PRAYER: A NOVEL OF ISRAEL

by Stephen G. Esrati

My novel, published by Xlibris Corp is historical fiction, ending at the time of the Six-Day War of 1967. It follows the lives of several people.

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 the 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, a newborn babe in her twenties.

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 a discharge and sails for Palestine on one of the illegal ships.

Naomi
Naomi Ben Horin is a native-born Palestinian Jew from Jerusalem, a member of the Irgun Zvai Leumi. After working with Jack in Italy, she comes home and becomes the hunted broadcaster of the Voice of Fighting Zion, broadcasting station of the Irgun. The British find the transmitter in Naomi's bedroom and she flees the country until the British leave Palestine. Like her husband, she becomes a lawyer and is involved in many high-publicity cases, including the defense of a journalist who was sued for libel by a Hungarian Zionist leader who cooperated with Adolf Eichmann.

Yokhanan
Yokhanan Galili is a native of Rosh Pina in Galilee, a high-ranking officer of Haganah, and an atheist. He battles against 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 Tel Aviv City Council, Yokhanan wants to overthrow what he terms theocracy. He marries an American Baptist (with great difficulty since intermarriage is banned in Israel) and they have a baby. The baby dies and cannot be buried anywhere.

Dave
David Gordon is a young New York Jew who got beaten up by the German-American Bund. He goes to the 92nd Street Y 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 Forces and gets shot down over Ploesti, Romania. But as soon as 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 I was one of the 61 hostages in Lebanon. Since I was first off the ship, I 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. He reaches Israel after getting his M.I.T. degree.

Manny
Emanuel Cardozo is the son of a Colorado millionaire and becomes one of the leaders of the American League for a Free Palestine, a group that makes a distinction between Jews in Palestine, whom it terms 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
Jack and Naomi have become lawyers and have taken on several cases that shake the very basis of Israel's unwritten constitution. I will not give away the entire plot here, but Jack and Naomi are eventually faced with the demand that they defend Adolf Eichmann. You will need to read the book to find out how they handle this, as well as their involvement in some very controversial legal cases. But Naomi does manage to bury Yokhanan's baby.