The elusive dove on the cover of this book is symbolic of what most people in the world desire - peace.  This story is based in the Middle East, where Palestinians and Israelis bump heads, and between wars, they try to rub along together.  The prologue tells a tale from biblical times, setting the scene for the later troubles between these very different peoples, who claim the same territory as their 'Promised Land', and have been prepared to fight and die to regain or retain it.

As in the prologue, the story moves from the late 1940s until more modern times, with the theme of battling brothers, be they blood relatives or not.  With the creation of the state of Israel, the Palestinians were displaced from 'their land' and the Jews moved into 'their land'.  This was the spark for the whole ugly business to get even uglier.  The Jews had been through the holocaust and wanted to create a homeland where they could feel safe and rebuild their lives.  The Palestinians could not understand why the Jews should be given their land, and resentment and bitterness grew between the two groups, and many thousands have died in this struggle for the 'Promised Land'.

The lead characters are Ellie, a Jew who has survived the holocaust and Yasif, a young Palestinian who is sent to America to complete his education.  Yasif enjoys the life in America and becomes a professor, and often feels guilty for not being part of the fight for his homeland.  Ellie fights against the enemies of Israel, but he suffers for his conviction.

The story reaches its climax with the possibility of death and destruction on a massive scale - can it be averted?

This is an interesting tale, seen from both sides of the struggle, and a beautifully presented volume.

Reviewed on 09/19/2011 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Suzy Watts

 "Our Promised Land" has some interesting ideas, but fails through one dementional characters, an imature writing style, and utterly impossible conclusion. 

Reviewed on 02/17/2011 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Bethany Forster

Like Sherwood Anderson's Youngstown, Ohio, Michael T. Darkow's Our Promised Land is told in episodes, which retain common characters but shift focus among multiple settings, plot lines, and time periods. Unlike Anderson's classic work, however, Darkow's novel is not a coming of age tale but rather a study of human helplessness in the face of violence fueled by an ancient hate.

Set mainly in modern-day Israel and Palestine, Our Promised Land delves into Jewish history as well as Islamic history to explore its ancient themes. The book focuses on three main characters: the two protagonists, Ellie and Yathrib, and a shadowy antagonist, Fatahd. Ellie is an Israeli, a Holocaust survivor who later smuggled himself into Israel rather than face further anti-Semitism in Europe. Yathrib is a Palestinian, immigrating to America to study mathematics after Israeli expansion forces his family off the land they have occupied for centuries.

At first glance, neither Ellie nor Yathrib seems particularly likeable. Long years in a concentration camp and then in the Israeli Moussad have hardened Ellie; he wavers between a sense of cold vengeance and a Hamlet-like brooding on "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Although he abhors bloodshed, he cannot see how the ancient animosity between his people and those of Palestine can ever allow either the Israelis or the Palestinians to live in peace as long as they must live with one another. Yathrib spends most of the book frozen by his own sense of guilt at leaving his family to study in the United States, a burden only made worse by his mother's disapproval and his brother's fatal decision to fight back against the Israelis.

Meanwhile, Fatahd, the book's villain, is not so much hateful as maddeningly obscure, hiding behind expert impersonations of other characters while never revealing his motives beyond an amorphous hatred of Jews in general and the United States, that "Great Satan," in particular. Yet it is ultimately Fatahd's choices upon which the book will turn, no matter how cryptic they are.

All three of the book's main characters manage a superficial self-redemption. By doing so, the book suggests, they become able, at long last, to redeem peace in the Middle East as well.

Title: Our Promised Land. Author: Michael T. Darkow. Publisher: Synergy Books, http://www.bookpros.com/synergy/ . 192 pp, $19.95. ISBN: 978-0984076017.

Reviewed on 02/10/2011 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Dani Alexis Ryskamp

A "Promised" Heartfelt, Wonderful Story

My biggest problem with finding the words to "review" this book was that I didn't want to scare anyone off. I'm not sure if it's unfortunate or fortunate that words like "heart wrenching" and "intricate" quickly come to mind but there's no way around it, this book is both. The characters are so intense that you feel as though you must pay close attention to who they are and where they fit in; later to find that they simply fall into place and all connect at some point. The story line is so intense and deep that you cannot walk away from reading this book without questioning man's mindset and ease to hate.

The story begins in nearly what we would think of as mankind as "the beginning". A poor shepherd saves the life of a Prince, and so the story begins and carries on through the generations of lives of the Jews and later, those who live in Israel/ Palestine.

Many of us think we know and understand the trials and tribulations of those who have lived and died in the Middle East. Israelites and Palestinians have fought for what seems a lifetime of lifetimes for a land they feel is theirs, but in the end we rarely know or understand the beginnings or the people behind the battles. We see torment, death, hatred and so much more that overwhelms the true stories beneath the battles... until now.

While the work of Darkow is one of fiction, there is no question that it is based on many facts and uncovering of families involved throughout the years in this part of the world. From the story of a war torn Germany and it's flight of Jews back to their "homeland" to the almost recognizably similar fight seen from the other side of the battle, the Palestinians, against the Jews. What set me aback the most was the very distinct likeness that these two groups of people seemed to battle, yet never realize the similarities of their ethnicity intertwine only to find hatred.

The hardest part of the book is the amount of characters who vary from place to place, time to time, family to family & generation to generation. At first it may seem overwhelming, but once you realize you should just read and they will fall into place it all settles into your mind and comes together like pieces of an intricate puzzle. I don't say this to put off any would-be readers, but instead to enlighten them not to be put off by the quick introduction to many names and faces, sometimes overwhelming you but in the end all just falling into place. Any good author has the ability to do this with a group of characters yet few are able. Darkow's talent to easily pull each and every character into place is recognized by any reader to be not only a "must" in such an intricate story but a talent not to be overlooked.

What hit me the hardest with this book is the ironic twist of stories, intertwining literally exact stories of being treated like animals instead of humans yet each forgetting their own mistreatment as they mistreat others almost in the same way. The lack of humanity, the true grit of hatred overcoming any remote inkling of human kindness makes you not only ache deep within for what has gone on and continues to go on in this region of the world but question mankind himself and how they can sometimes be so quick to forget.

This story hits hard. It rings of so much truth you have to remind yourself that it's a work of fiction. It hits so hard that you realize we, as humans, may have be able to love without hatred interfering in our hearts. Simply put, Darkow has managed to bring a piece of the world that so many of us thought we understood or knew and put us into the reality that we haven't a clue what our own hearts can do or become. The best part? Perhaps in the end some of us can become what we are meant to be, "human", instead of what we have become. Perhaps there is a hope, even for a part of the world that seems to have always functioned with hatred surrounding it.

Reviewed on 06/07/2010 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Beverly Pechin