METRO SPIRIT
AUGUSTA'S INDEPENDENT VOICE
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Issue #19.34 ::
03/19/2008 - 03/25/2008 |
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Judging Deborah In a powerful
historical romance, Eva Etzioni-Halevy recounts the majesty of feminine
leadership of Biblical time |
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AUGUSTA, GA. - In a
powerful historical romance, Eva Etzioni-Halevy recounts the majesty
of feminine leadership of Biblical times. ÒThe Triumph of DeborahÓ displays
the life of a leader who brought war and brought peace to the people of
Israel in the Book of Judges. A professor of political sociology at the
Bar-Ilan University in Israel, Etzioni-Halevy has published scholarly
articles and two previous novels based on the lives of women in the Biblical
world.
The story is woven around emotional conflict. Deborah
leads Israel to success in war against the superpower of the Canaan Kingdom,
and while she holds the respect of her people she loses the hand of her
husband in the process.
Characters are forced to struggle with conflicting
loyalties as Deborah develops feelings for her general Barak while longing
for reunion with her husband. Barak takes the daughters of the Canaan king as
his own only to find them struggling with their past lives and their new
situations. In this method of conflicted relations, Etzioni-Halevy examines
the nature of loyalty to family, to nation, to past, and to self within the
model of shifting love triangles between the characters.
Even in the midst of successful warfare and the
adoration of her people, Deborah struggles to retain her strength in the face
of personal loss and emotional confusion while the former daughters of the
defeated king seek to find there place within a world of traumatic changes.
Throughout the confusion and conflict the heart of the women in the story is
the compelling feature, and Òthough mountains may shiftÉand hills may shakeÓ in
the life of these women, love remains the immovable factor that binds the
reader to the turning pages.
Etzioni-Halevy speaks to the heart of emotional turmoil,
and though DeborahÕs words flow Òlike water down a slopeÓ within the power
centers of Israeli society, she stumbles in her attempts to reach the ears of
her husband. Using the emotional triggers of passionate love and heart
wrenching loss, the story explodes from the pages in a menagerie of
fascination.
Available in any major bookstore, this novel is a
perfect piece for anyone who enjoys romance and history mixed into a
compelling plot. As Etzioni-Halevy observes, the women of the world are
gifted with the abilities to create peace in the midst of chaos because while
Òmen have the wisdom of the mind, women have the wisdom of the heart.Ó
In a time when a woman runs for the highest office in
the land, in a time when wars rage across the world, and in a time when young
girls are reaching for leadership roles in many organizations and schools,
ÒThe Triumph of DeborahÓ may serve as an inspirational example of the ability
of a prominent woman to lead her people in both war and peace.
Etzioni-Halevy, Eva. ÒThe Triumph of Deborah.Ó New York:
Plume (Penguin Group Publishing). 2008. 358pp. $14.00 Paper. ISBN:
978045228906-2. |
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