Exodus is a brilliant novel about the birth of the Jewish state. The book begins in a British detention center at Caraolos on the island of Cyprus. After the end of WWII Jews from all over Europe began to illegally immigrate to Palestine. However, since Palestine was a British Protectorate the English blockaded the coast and sent the incoming jews to Cyprus to withhold Arab uprisings.
A few chapters into the book we meet Ari, an agent of an illegal Jewish arm of the Haganah armed forces of the Yushiv (non-recognized, but dealt with informal government). The agency buys old ships an illegally transports jew aboard these shis.
Ari is sent to Cyrprus. There he rallies the camp and begins a campaign to transfer 300 detention camp children to a harbor in Famagusta where a ship waiting for Israel will be, the Exodus.
On Cyprus Ari meets an American nurse by the name of Kitty. She is immediately attracted to him and through the course fo the book hey develop a off-and on type of relationship.
Ari successfully gets the children from the detention camps but the British blockade the port. After days of boycutting food as a sign of protest the British can no longer stand to watch the children starve so they let the ship pass. the event is world headlines and it creates mush publicity for the Jewish campaign for freedom.
After the campagin in Cyprus the book begins with the story of his fathers and uncles struggle to reach ISrael.THe book then leads us through the struggles of modern Isreal and makes the British and Arabs out as criminals.
Along the way the novel backtracks to many side stories ans finishes with the Yushiv fight in the U.N for the ratification of a bill to establish a Jewsih State. Afterwards, the last part of the book describes the war of liberation that was fought against seven Arab States immediately after ISrael declared independence.
During the course fo the novel Leon Uris takes you through a history of hardship, struggle and the overwhelming desire of the Jewsih people for freedom.