IGX

This is a short novel written about an Israeli about a tanker brigade fighting in the Golan in the first five days of the Yom Kippur war. I lived in Israel for a year in 75 and roomed with a Yemenite who had been a tanker in the war. He talked about the war only occasionally, and the feelings in a tank in a major tank battle. So I figured this book would be a good way for me to learn more.

It’s a very good war book. You get the sense of tank battle vividly – not like you see it in the movies, but battle based on chaos, confusion, machine break downs, equipment screw-ups, courage, cowardice, going it on your own when you’re not in touch with anyone in charge, fighting without sleep, escaping from burning tanks, and figuring out what to do after you’ve jumped out of your tank onto the battlefield.

The other element of the book is that most of the soldiers who play a big role are religious. Israeli religious soldiers are quite scholarly – they’ve been schooled in religious academies their whole lives and even their army training is coupled with continuing religious education. The book shows how they pray, how they talk, what they do with fear and death, and how they muster courage to fight off the Syrians who had surprised Israel by invading on Yom Kippur, 1973.

The book uses a number of terms that only religious Jews might be familiar with. It provides a good glossary at the end, though.