The Masada Complex (78 page)

He nodded.

She patted the fender over the huge wheel of the tractor.

“Hop on!”

THE END

Author’s Note

N
ot a day passes without news from Israel hitting the top five on the Associated Press, and rarely is it good news. Those who care about the Jewish state have longed for the day that Israel lives free of news-worthy calamities. The Masada Complex reflects this reality—and longing.

In writing The Masada Complex, I relied on family and friends, whose enthusiastic support and helpful comments had sustained me along the way. Special thanks to editors Aviva Layton, Larry Dale, Natalie Bates and Renee Johnson, as well as the professional staff at CreateSpace, for making The Masada Complex such a great ride.

For those interested in further reading about the history of Masada, its intriguing heritage, and its impact on Zionism and modern Israel, here are a few of the sources I found helpful:

Yadin, Yigael.
Masada—Herod’s Fortress and the Zealots’ Last Stand.
NY: Random, 1966;

Yadin, Yigael.
Bar-Kokhba—The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Second Jewish Revolt Against Rome.
Hebrew. Jerusalem: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971;

Levy, Thomas E., Editor,
The Archeology of Society in the Holy Land.
NY: Facts on File, 1995;

Ben-Yehuda, Nechman.
Sacrificing Truth—Archeology and the Myth of Masada.
Amherst: Humanity, 2002;

Shanks, Hershel, et al.
The Dead Sea Scrolls—After Forty Years.
Washington DC: Biblical Archeological Society, 1991;

Josephus.
The Jewish War.
NY: Penguin Classics, 1959;

Yosef Ben Matithiahu/Josephus Plavius.
The History of the Wars of the Jews Against the Romans
(Hebrew ed., translated from Greek, Y.N. Simchony). Tel Aviv: Masada Books, 1968;

Seward, Desmond.
Jerusalem’s Traitor—Josephus, Masada, and the Fall of Judea.
Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2009;

Rosenthal, Monroe and Mozeson, Isaac.
Wars of the Jews—A Military History from Biblical to Modern Times.
(NY: Hippocrene Books, 1990;

Netanyahu, Benjamin.
A Place Among the Nations—Israel and the World.
NY: Bantam, 1993;

Melman, Yossi and Raviv, Dan.
Friends in Deed—Inside the U.S.-Israel Alliance.
NY: Hyperion, 1995;

Hazony, Yoram,
The Jewish State—The Struggle for Israel’s Soul
. NY: Basic, 2000;

Dershowitz, Alan.
The Case for Israel
. Hoboken: Wiley & Sons, 2003;