To Touch a Dream

Telling a story that has been told--and better--many times before, this sweeping novel depicts the evolution of the State of Israel from 1912 until the present through the activities of the aristocratic, matriarchial and politically diverse Danziger family. Deborah, Tamar and Raphael Danziger found NILI, a group of young Jewish Zionists who aid the British against the Turks during WW I. Despised by both Jews and Arabs because their activities cause vicious Turkish reprisals, the group eventually is betrayed and Tamar commits suicide. Her son Gidonsp ok , fathered by an enigmatic Englishman whose character is modeled on T. E. Lawrence, continues the struggle for a homeland in his own violent way and further divides the family, now headed by Deborah. Becoming increasingly glib, the book begins to unravel with the proliferation of the Danziger clan and their myriad acquaintances, many of whom are stock characters who exist simply to expound a point of view. The author of Somebody Please Love Me has hardly written an even-handed Middle Eastern history. Yet despite the novel's flaws, she graphically illustrates that the dream for a homeland is exacting a terrible toll. (Oct.)