Overview

Was it one of the war's most memorable feats of valor or an act of desperation, even madness? In Out of the Sky, Matti Friedman unravels one of the strangest episodes of World War II: In 1944, a team of young women and men who had escaped the Holocaust made the inconceivable choice to parachute back into Nazi-occupied Europe under the cover of a British military operation. Yet by the end of the mission, not a single Nazi was harmed and not a single Jew was saved, and many of the parachutists died in the process. Even so, some of their names would become legendary, especially that of twenty-three-year-old Hannah Senesh, the author of the beloved Hebrew song ""Eli, Eli."" Their story would become one of the young state of Israel's founding myths--but what exactly was the mission, and what had the parachutists actually accomplished? What made them heroes? Using thousands of original documents from once-secret files, manuscripts, memoirs, and unpublished letters, Matti Friedman follows four of the parachutists from the spring of 1944 to the operation's dramatic end that winter. In Out of the Sky, he tells the gripping and surprising tale of a forgotten moment, demonstrating how storytelling itself can have a power even greater than warfare. And in exploring the line between myth and reality, heroism and futility, he creates an argument that has resonance in our own time.

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9781954118980

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Reviews

""Thrilling, terrifying, and awe-inspiring.""--Simon Sebag Montefiore

""I'll read anything Matti Friedman writes, knowing his work will not only engage and enlighten, but transform me. Out of the Sky is the story of a woman who became a legend--and of the eternal interplay between human lives and history, how our stories, taken together, become the record of who we are.""--Jonathan Safran Foer ""An absolutely captivating story where the reality that Friedman has uncovered is far more fascinating than the myth. This is a book, in every sense, about the distance between heaven and earth, and the courage it takes to cross it.""--Dara Horn, author of People Love Dead Jews ""Gripping . . . Out of the Sky is at once an eloquent inquiry into heroism, a wrenching chronicle of bravery and betrayal, and a poignant evocation of a generation hurled from innocence into the maw of history.""--Benjamin Balin, author of Kafka's Last Trial ""Out of the Sky is a riveting story of Jewish resistance. For years I looked exactly for this book, for a textured and nuanced portrait of Hannah Senesh, Haviva Reich, and their fellow parachutists. In resurrecting this remarkable historical moment, Matti Friedman not only sheds light on an underdiscussed period but wisely hints at how this heroic narrative has helped shape modern Jewish identity."" --Judy Batalion, author of The Light of Days ""In this hauntingly beautiful book, Matti Friedman sets out to recover the story of Hannah Senesh and her fallen companions from the shadowland of myth and fading memory. Friedman movingly gathers up the sparks of his Jewish heroes' brief lives, their biblical dreams, European nightmares, and above all the hope, imagination, and youthful daring that could not save Europe's Jews but continue to inspire the old-new country whose rebirth is Friedman's true subject."" -- Jonathan Rosen, author of The Best Minds

Author Information

Matti Friedman is an award-winning journalist and author. His four previous nonfiction books have been awarded the Sami Rohr Prize, the Natan Prize, and the ALA's Sophie Brody Medal, and have been translated into a dozen languages. Born in Toronto and based in Jerusalem, he has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Smithsonian and is a columnist for the Free Press.

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