Books: Avenger of the Faith

THE HEIRS OF CAIN by Abraham Rothberg. 319 pages. Putnam. $5.95.

Violence has become the idiom of the times. The spy novel, once devoted to the exploitation of intrigue and suspense, is more and more becoming a vehicle by which serious writers explore the wretched state of man and the cruelty of the human heart. In this bitter, brilliantly drawn book, Abraham Rothberg, historian, journalist and teacher, adopts an espionage mission as the framework for probing the holocaust that enveloped European Jewry after Hitler’s rise to power.

Rothberg’s anti-hero is Jacob Nissim, a veritable Aryan in appearance—blond, crew cut, blue eyes, short straight nose—but in experience perhaps too pat a symbol of Jewish suffering and persecution. A product of the Warsaw ghetto, Nissim escapes at 13 from the cattle car that is taking his family to the gas chambers at Oéwięcim. He learns to kill while traveling with a band of Polish partisans. Eventually, he goes to Israel, where he continues to kill—first the British, then the Arabs. Later, as an assassin for the Shin Beth, the Israeli secret service, he is assigned to liquidate two former Nazis who are developing atomic rockets for the Egyptians. It is soon apparent that Rothberg is retelling the history of the Diaspora in this century. Not only has Nissim experienced the full horror of Hitlerism and the hardships of an Israeli pioneer; he is also a man who cannot forget. Indeed, to Nissim, total recall is not a talent but an obsession. He sees himself as an avenger for his people, both defender and violator of his ancient faith, a kind of Jewish Everyman to his generation and his times.

An accomplished killer, Nissim carries out his mission. But Rothberg is far too skilled a storyteller to let him escape unscathed. Nissim has always lost whatever he has loved, but he has survived, and at last he no longer doubts the value of that gift. “On the last six days of Passover,” he says, “Jews say a special prayer—the half Hallel. Tradition has it that when the Egyptians, in pursuing the Jews, were drowning in the Red Sea, the Lord kept His angels from singing His praises, admonishing them, ‘How can you sing hymns while my creatures are drowning in the sea?” Perhaps, he decides, life is always a half Hallel