Jewish Journal  The Story of the Exodus Remains Powerful  A
journalist's eyewitness account helped create the Jewish state
by Aaron Leibel  January 20, 2000 | 7:00 pm  The story of the
Exodus ship -- immortalized in a novel by Leon Uris and
converted into a movie -- was an important marker in the
struggle for the resurrection of the Jewish state. It was also a
milestone in the decline of Britain as a great power, Ruth
Gruber explains in her powerful, newly-revised book, "Exodus
1947 -- The Ship That Launched a Nation."  Gruber's association
with Jewish refugees began in 1944, when, as special assistant
to Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes, she was sent on a secret
mission to Europe to accompany 1,000 Jewish refugees from
Hitler's Europe to the United States. On the trip home, she got
to know the refugees. "The bonding with the refugees became the
defining moment of my life. I knew from then on that my life
would be inextricably bound with the refugees, with rescue and
survival."  Two years later, as a repor