When the Jews restore Hebrew as a national language, the brothers become Akiva and Barak. Jossi works to understand the Arab mentality and use controlled force to gain their respect. They find Palestine disappointing because the Jews are too proud to farm and spoiled by money pouring in from overseas philanthropists. In the 19th century, Ari's father Jossi and uncle Yakov are driven by a Russian pogrom, a violent anti-Jewish riot, to seek refuge in Palestine. He reveals a suicide pact that makes London 'Let my people go!' A standoff develops, and Ari raises the stakes through a hunger strike. The Exodus is wired to explode if the British attack. Kitty is convinced to join Ari's plot, not knowing that the Exodus is intended to awaken the world to the inhumanity of British Mandate policy, with Mark as publicist. Karen Hansen Clement becomes Kitty's ward, and she tells the harrowing story of Dov Landau surviving the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz. Kitty is gradually moved from hearing detainees' stories about surviving the Holocaust. Ari risks 300 children aboard the ship Exodus in an attempt to save 250,000 desperate people in Europe. Mossad is training and re-moralizing the Jews detained in British camps for the coming battle over Palestine.

Meanwhile, two other old friends, Ari Ben Canaan and David Ben Ami, from the Jewish underground, also secretly reunite. Mark Parker is a foreign correspondent, and Kitty Fremont is a nurse. On Cyprus in 1946, long-lost American friends reunite. Exodus is the epic story of two generations of Jews striving to reclaim Palestine as a homeland after 2,000 years of dispersion.

Exodus book leon uris