Dawn of the Promised Land: The Creation of Israel

J.L. Granatstein, distinguished research professor emeritus of history
at York University, is the author of Who Killed Canadian History?, and
co-author of The Canadian 100: The 100 Most Influential Canadians of the
20th Century and the Dictionary of Canad

In this 50th anniversary year of the creation of Israel, there have been
dozens of books published. Canadian cartoonist and writer Ben Wicks may
not be the most likely author of one of these books, but his account of
the political and military background from the Great War to about 1950
has its interest. There is little research here and the bibliography of
books consulted is pathetically inadequate; nonetheless, the story is
briskly told in a relatively unbiased way. What gives Wicks’s book its
special interest is the interviews he did and from which he draws long
extracts. These record the experiences of many present Israelis who came
to the country before or just after independence, some as survivors of
the Holocaust, others as Jewish soldiers in Western armies who came to
assist. The tale may be brief, but the personal accounts give it an
inspirational, yet very human, aspect.