a novel by Yoram Yovell, M.D., Ph.D.

"Helen on the Roof", an original Israeli novel published in 1998, is one
of the first works of fiction ever to deal with the war in Lebanon,
which was largely ignored by Israeli and Arab writers.  The novel, told
in the first person, follows the officers and men of the Israeli 548th
tank battalion as they enter Lebanon for a reserve tour of duty.  They
are sent to guard the Shiite and Palestinian prisoners who are held in
Ansar, a fortified detention camp built by Israel in Southern Lebanon.
Their journey across the border and into the Lebanese countryside
quickly becomes an odyssey of fear.  Once in the prison camp, Erez, the
protagonist, a somewhat immature officer, who would much prefer to
return to his care-free life as a student in Tel Aviv, is both seduced
and frightened by the unexpected realities of the war in Lebanon: He
falls hopelessly in love with Hadas-Helen, a mysterious, beautiful woman
soldier, who is the object of desire of all the men in the camp, both
Jewish and Arab.  He struggles with deteriorating morale and a loss of
purpose in himself and among his men.  And he comes to realize that he
shares more in common with his prisoners than he was prepared to admit:
they are all trapped together in a senseless, bloody conflict, locked in
a murderous Mid-Eastern vendetta from which they may not escape.

"Helen on the Roof" provides a rare and intimate glimpse into the fabric
of the Israeli army, with its formidable strengths and unexpected
weaknesses.  It is a story of young and not-so-young men who are sent to
fight a war in which they do not believe.  The novel offers an insider’s
view of how the war in Lebanon, on which Israel embarked without a
national consensus, exposed deep rifts within Israeli society, and
injured its army’s legendary esprit de corps.  The novel introduces the
reader to a few unlikely heroes as well as cowards: the
citizen-soldiers of the Israeli army, who have made it the Middle East’s
strongest fighting force.  With a keen eye for detail and fast-moving
dialogue, Yovell unfolds the interactions of the regiment’s officers and
men with each other and with the Lebanese, and their response to the
horrors in which they find themselves.  His narrative is sharp and
accurate, as bold and surprising as a suicide bomber, and as convincing
as only an insider’s tale can be.

"Helen on the Roof" is being translated to English and will be published
in the U.S.A. in 1999.

Yoram Yovell, a Jerusalem native, is a psychoanalyst and a
psychiatrist.  He is a major in the I.D.F., and served in Lebanon as an
artillery reconnaissance officer.  He studied medicine in Jerusalem,
neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute, and psychoanalysis at Columbia
University in New York City.  His works were published in scientific
journals.  "Helen on the Roof" is his first novel.