Dawn

A comrade of Elisha’s in the Movement, Gad converted Elisha to the Zionist cause, recruiting him and training him to fight. Gad is portrayed as a self-assured, firebrand Zionist bent on securing Palestine for the Jewish people. However, the book implies that he struggles with feelings of self-doubt and despair regarding his ideology and actions.

Gad is a subject of Elisha’s admiration and resentment at different turns. When they first met, Elisha regarded him as a religious emissary. “‘I am Gad,’ he said in a resonant voice, as if he were uttering some cabalistic sentence that contained an answer to every question. He said ‘I am Gad’ in the same way that Jehovah said ‘I am that I am’” (14). Later, Elisha bitterly thinks of Gad as the man who made him a killer. When Elisha first met Gad, he described Palestine in lush, poetic language, and while training Elisha to be a Jewish fighter, he delivered eloquent calls to battle. However, now Gad dully repeats the same empty consolations as Ilana does. This contrast illustrates the drop in Elisha’s esteem.

Elisha’s initial perception of Gad as an emissary for God is further evident in his practical role as a messenger for the Old Man, the Movement’s leader. Gad acts as a go-between for the Old Man when he sends Elisha on his first mission. He’s also the one who delivered the news that Elisha was chosen to execute Dawson. The Old Man himself is positioned as representing God. He’s completely remote; we never meet him or learn any personal details about him. He’s the one who calls for Dawson’s death, and he implicitly has the final word on all the Movement’s actions. Ilana credits him for creating both her speeches and her voice, in the same way one might credit God for their gifts. Even his moniker, “the Old Man,” calls to mind a wizened ancient with a long white beard.

Gad never passes judgment on the Old Man’s choices, but he does interpret his behavior from afar. When Ilana says that she saw him crying, Gad believes that the Old Man was crying for reasons that validate his own actions and beliefs: “That’s why the Old Man was crying,” said Gad, brushing a stubborn lock of hair back from his forehead. “The Jews are not yet free of their persecution reflex. They haven’t the guts to strike back” (31). This calls to mind a religious person speculating on God’s whims and values.

The Old Man’s remoteness as expressed through Gad emphasizes Elisha’s social isolation within the Movement, especially when compared to the communication lines between high-ranking British officials. While important figures in the British government—such as the High Commissioner and Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs—“personally” discuss their decision to hang ben Moshe, Elisha learns of “the Old Man’s orders” (10) to kill Dawson through Gad, and even then, only after asking “Who is to kill him?” (10).

A Movement volunteer, David ben Moshe is captured and executed by English forces. Elisha never meets David, and thus he never enters the narrative. Elisha and the other resistance fighters regard David as a martyr for the Movement’s cause as soon as he’s captured. The Movement itself is conflated with Jewish safety, Jewish pride, and Jewishness itself. Thus, David is seen as both a political and religious martyr. Nevertheless, the book conveys the sense that David’s capture and impending death are more personal to Gad because the two are old friends who joined the movement together.

Elisha envisions David as a font of heroism, strength, and virtue. When Elisha is preparing to execute Dawson, he imagines a sanctified David comforting the rabbi who has come to give him last rights and then bravely going to his death. In addition, he imagines David “rescuing” him from laughing in Dawson’s presence. Elisha’s fear of laughing at Dawson is contextualized by his near strangulation at Buchenwald; this can thus be seen as a metaphor for Elisha’s hope that bearing David in mind will protect him from becoming cruel, callous, or emotionally invested in Dawson’s death.

Elisha’s positive feelings toward David are impersonal. At the beginning of the novel, Elisha remarks that he knows nothing of Dawson other than the fact that he’s English and an enemy. Likewise, although he never states as much, all he knows of ben Moshe is that he’s Jewish and an ally. This makes it both easy and emotionally necessary for him to imagine David as an inhumanly virtuous martyr. In the moments leading up to Dawson’s execution, Elisha soothes himself by imagining that Dawson is ben Moshe. This helps him dissociate himself from the crime he’s about to commit—and makes him more comfortable with the empathy he feels for Dawson, allows Elisha to graft his compassion for John (a man he knows personally) onto David (a man for whom he feels little, because they’ve never met).

Captain John Dawson is an English military man occupying British Mandatory Palestine. When British forces capture David ben Moshe, the Movement retaliates by abducting Dawson and holding him ransom in exchange for ben Moshe. The British announce their intention to execute ben Moshe, and the Movement responds by announcing plans to execute Dawson. Elisha is reluctantly tasked with his killing.

Upon meeting Dawson in the sixth chapter, Elisha describes him as a “handsome” and “distinguished” man in his 40s, “a professional soldier […] with penetrating eyes, a resolute chin, thin lips, a broad forehead, and slender hands” (83). He’s affable, calm, and often expresses compassion for Elisha, asserting his pity over and over again. He also claims to have a son Elisha’s age and writes a final note to him, which he asks Elisha to deliver.

Dawson’s execution is framed as a necessary evil at best and an unforgivable atrocity at worst. He’s presented as a dignified, good-natured man undeserving of his fate. Highly perceptive, he recognizes Elisha’s troubles within a few minutes of meeting him. He also shows particular empathy and warmth for his executioner.