Lost in History's Shuffle

...the people who took pan in the events are dying, and their letters and memorabilia are not always kept by the next generation...

...Repeatedly, authors Joseph Hochstein and Murray Greenfield charge that the critical role North American volunteers played in the period between the liberation of Europe and the declaration ol"Israel's independence—while Britain's White Paper denied entry to the survivors of Hitler's Final Solution—has been "lost in a historical shuttle...

...But what is truly astonishing is lhat Hollywood has never discovered this rich vein of stories about tensions and cooperation between naive but heroic American sailors and instinctively conspiratorial East Europeans...

...No one quoted in the book rebuts the charge, and there is no explanation for the silence...

...It seems to be an open and shut case: The heroism of North American volunteers manning ten ships plying their perilous routes to Israel has been ignored by Israeli and American historians as well as political leaders, and consequently forgotten by the Jewish people...

...The tendeniious amnesia this book is fighting docs not surprise those who arc familiar with the traditional intrigues of Zionist politics...

...Records are scant, and the survivors disagree on some of the details...

...The two authors art1 American Jews who have settled in Israel...

...What Hochstcin and Greenfield produced is a most useful compendium of fascinating and inspiring data that, one imagines, will one day auraei historians of another generation to delve into the personalities and ihc polities of tliose who made history and those who preferred to keep it hushed up...

...One American volunteer was killed and others were injured in battles with the British...

...Chafes fenyvesi writes a poMical column called "Washington Whispers" for OS...

...While some returned to North America, others stayed on, and six of them lost their lives in Israel1...

...Another (iasablanca seems to \k waiting to be scripted out of the forged identities of sailors and ships, their bar fights both fake and real, bribed police chiefs in western Mediterranean ports and secret philanthropists on the eastern seaboard of the United States, Even the names of the ships offer a tangled romance: Pan York and The Jewish Stale, ArlosorojJ and Ben Htchl, Wedgewood and Geula...

...Unless something is done about it now, the history of the epic illegal immigration, or atiyak tuth, as it is known in Israel, will be finalized—this unpretty word is just right here—without a mention of the direel contribution of North Americans...

...tews & Wpr/tf Report and is a garden columnist for the Washington Post He is the former editor of trie National Jewish Monthly and The- Washington Jewish Week...

...13000 Reviewed by Charles Fenyvesi The Romans once told us lhat history lends to be written cum \ra el studio—with the help of anger and siudiousness...

...War of Independence...

...The authors and the participants they interviewed for the book are indignant ihat for the past 40 years neither Israelis nor Americans have paid attention to the tact lhat should have been inscribed with pride in the history books of both nations: Barely seaworthy vessels purchased in the United States and manned by some 200 North American volunteer sailors were responsible for carrying rmjre than !2,000 immigrants—or nearly half of ihc refugees who sailed from post-war Europe or Palestine prior to Israel's independence...

...Many were captured and interned in detention camps in Cyprus...

...The book is written in desperation as well...

...This slender and journalistic volume, which has the subtitle *LThe untold story of North American volunteers who smashed [he British blockade," adds an important third ingredient: hurt pride...

...They arc clealy enthusiastic about their project, which involved years of taping interviews with participants whose memories were failing, and the arduous task of tracking down elusive details...