Having grown up in post-war Germany where we were all saddled with the collective guilt of what had been done to the Jews during World War II, Leon Uris's 1960 novel "Exodus" was required reading - in German, of course - before we could even find Palestine on a map.
It was only many years later that I also watched the movie, in Australia and in English, which, although fictionalised, drew its inspiration from the real life-events surrounding the "Exodus 1947". While I was deeply impressed by the movie, I felt ambivalent about rebuilding a nation in a land from which it had been dispersed more than 2,000 years before. Of course, one could always argue that establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine was a much better idea than the so-called "Uganda Scheme".
In the light of what is happening right now in the Middle East, it's perhaps a book and movie well worth re-reading and re-watching.
