"PEELING THE LAYERS OFF THE MASADA MYTH": Dr. Tamar Landau reviews "Ani, Shalom Bat Shmuel" ("I Am Shalom Bat Shmuel") for Ha'aretz. Excerpt:

The inspiration for Myno Ben-Guigui Yeger's book is a short passage from Book 7 of the "The Jewish War," which has fired the imaginations of many. Another novel inspired by this same passage is Yoram Avi-Tamar's "Life of Joseph: An Unpublished History." The tragedy has reached a peak: The Jews on Masada have committed mass suicide and everything has gone up in flames. There seems to be no hope. But then it turns out that there are survivors: "Yet was there an ancient woman, and another who was of kin to Eleazar, and superior to most women in prudence and learning, with five children, who had concealed themselves in caverns under ground, and had carried water thither for their drink, and were hidden there when the rest were intent upon the slaughter of one another. Those others were 960 in number, the women and children being withal included in that computation. This calamitous slaughter was made on the fifteenth day of the month Xanthicus [Nisan] - The women heard this noise [of the Romans coming up the mountain] and came out of their underground cavern, and informed the Romans what had been done, as it was done; and the second of them clearly described all, both what was said and what was done, and this manner of it; yet did they not easily give their attention to such a desperate undertaking, and did not believe it could be as they said, that they went through with such an action as that was."

There is no historical proof of this incident, and no way of knowing whether Josephus was telling the truth or merely embroidering a dramatic ending for his story. One way or the other, our curiosity is piqued: Who was this woman? How did she save herself? What made her disobey Eleazar and run away instead of committing suicide? Where was she educated? What happened to her afterward?

Myno Ben-Guigui Yeger tries to answer these questions in her novel, and does it with great charm and delicacy. The heroine of this beautiful book is Shalom, the daughter of Shmuel, from the house of Eleazar. She is a young Jerusalemite from an aristocratic family, as one might guess from her learning, beauty, political awareness and knowledge of languages.