As a a teacher in the Jewish community, I will certainly use this book as reference material when building lessons on modern Israel. The biographies were a bit on the brief side and the language could have been a bit better, but all in all I am sure this will be useful to me. ( )

This book gave me mixed feelings.
First, I loved the differing personas and circumstances of all the heroes portrayed to make one great goal as all had the dream and vision of having their own place to belong. So often history only portrays the "leaders" and military movements that bring events about skipping the everyday people who struggle and fight for events to happen. This anthology of biographies gave a more full picture across the board of those who fought for an independant state of Isreal. It was lovely to see the passion of those who weren't necessarily soldiers or politicians, such as the poets, students, and sports figures included in the book.
That said, the biographies were very brief, and gave only a glimpse into how each individual felt and lived and contributed, leaving the reader to do further research on their own should any one intrigue them enough to want to know more.
The one thing that detracted for me was the jargon used throughout. I'm not Jewish and have limited exposure to the culture and even though the author used his own biography as an introduction to some of the words and terms, I couldn't remember them enough to not have to stop and relook them up each time I encountered them in the text. Perhaps that is a fault of mine or my memory, but I found myself wishing that he would have just written out what he meant in each biography instead of expecting the many new vocabulary words to be learned instantly in the one chapter. Especailly as a lot of them seemed similar to my untrained eye.
Despite that, all the biographies were interesting and it was captivating to see all the differing heroes of at least one person, if not a whole nation. ( )

This was a very good book about the giants behind the modern Israel movement. While the biographies included were rather brief they presented good information on the people that were highlighted. Different types of people were presented as modern day heroes, and the author showed how he was impacted by the legacy they left behind. ( )

I have mixed feelings about the book. On the one hand, I was quite excited to have won this one. (I have family who are Orthodox Jews living in Jerusalem.) The idea of "A Voice Called" was wonderful. This is especially true since it tells stories from across the full history of modern Isreal instead focousing only on the Holocaust. The lives presented were interesting and some dealt with events about which I knew very little.

On the other hand, I was quite disappointed in its execution. It was poorly organized and not the well written. None of the biographies were given in much depth, even accounting for the fact that this is an anthology rather then full biographies. I think the book would have benefitted from some rigorous editting.

This book gives a grand overview of several slices of Jewish history in an innovative manner: through the eyes of individuals instead of only the overreaching events of the days. I found it both captivating and informative. I especially appreciated the author's own story, in which he graciously translates the various Jewish terms used throughout the book.