Rescue: The Exodus of the Ethiopian Jews

Descendants, according to legend, of a night of love between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, Ethiopia's 28,000 black Jews historically have been forced to live in isolated poverty and forbidden to emigrate. Rescue reveals how most of these people, with Israeli and American assistance, succeeded in reaching the Promised Land by 1985, after an epic trek across the desert and the overcoming of such obstacles as lions, dangerous river-crossings, would-be rapists and robbers, the constant threat of starvation and the violent enmity of the Marxist Ethiopian government. Gruber, the only American journalist to witness ""Operation Moses,'' presents it as a great, stirring saga, focusing on the fortunes of a small number of the refugees. A thoroughly satisfying story, topped off with a description of the absorption of the black Jews into Israeli society. (November)