The Dovekeepers (2011) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

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• Yael: One of our protagonists, a young red haired Jewish woman who journeys to the Masada after fleeing Jerusalem. Her mother died during her birth, her father is an assassin for the Zealots.
• Shirah: Known to many of the Masada women as the Witch of Moab and Ben Ya'ir. She supervises Yael in one of Masada's dovecotes.
• Aziza: One of our protagonists, Shirah's oldest daughter, Nahara and Adir's half-sister.
• Revka: One of our protagonists, a middle aged woman in the same dovecote that Yael works in.
• Amram: Yael's older brother and skilled assassin. He affectionately callls Yael, "Yaya."
• Yosef bar Elhanan: Yael and Amram's father and assassin for the Zealots.
• Jachim Ben Simon: An assassin whose family traveled with Yael and her father on the route of the doomed along the Salt Sea
• Sia: Ben Simon's wife
• Nahara: Shirah's youngest daughter
• Eleazar ben Ya'ir: Leader of the Zealots at Masada
• Wynn: Known by those at Masada as "The Man from the North" captured by the Roman army forced to serve as a Roman soldier captured and enslaved by the Zealots and assigned to work in the dovecote.
• Adir: Shirah's son
• Yoav: Former scholar and son-in-law to Revka.
• Abba: The leader of the Essenes at Masada.
• Yosef bar Elhanan: Yaels father who is also an assassin in killing Zealots.
• Malachi ben Aaron: A young Essene man who is sent by Abba to assist in the dovecote.
• Channa: Eleazar ben Ya'ir's childless wife.
• Arieh: Yael and Jachim Ben Simon's son. His name means "lion."

Quotes edit see section history

• “But I knew that one of our neighbors had stolen from us. That was what happened in lean times. The truth about people surfaced just as surely as tiny silver fish arose from the sand in the desert when there was flooding, miraculously appearing in the ravines amid the sudden rushing streams. It was said such fish could bury themselves in the sand for seven years, their flesh so dry it would seem to be nothing but dust. At the first hint of rain they would show their true selves, exactlty as people did whenever they were given time enough and cause.”

  Yael

• “I saw in her what I had spied in the Baker each morning of his life, the love of fashioning something out of ingredients that would be nothing without a human touch, be it salt or wheat or iron that was transformed.”

  Revka

• “He wanted pain, I saw that in him, and what a man wants he will often manage to find.”

  Aziza

• “If we had paid attention, we would have understood there are some things in this world you cannot outrun.”

  Revka

• “But perhaps on this mountain, with so much danger before us, there was little time to search out sin and little reason to do so. did my neighbors not wonder what sins of their own had brought them to this place, why our people must suffer so, why God's ways were so mysterious, why He had forsaken us on this mountain?”

  Revka

• “But now i understood that, although words were god's first creation, silence was closer to his divine spirit, and that prayers given in silence were infinitely greater than the thousands of words men might offer up to heaven.”

  Revka

• “After that night our mother cursed what it meanst to be a woman. Her life had been molded by all she could not do and all she never would be.”

  Aziza

• “After that he called me Aziza, a name of your father's people. It can mean one who is beloved, but it also means one who is mighty and fierce. There are those who believe the name is an ancient word for archer, one who is never without a weapon, never at anyone's mercy. That was what our mother wished for me.”

  Aziza

• “The women who joined in this way of life believed that few were closer to Shechinah than the KEDESHAH. They embraced the feminine aspect of God, the Dwelling, the deep place where inspiration abided, for in the written words of God, compassion and knowledge were always female.”

  Shirah

• “The wickedness of the world was a part of creation, i knew this, and the angel of death had been created on that day when life first appeared, yet I was embittered. I wept for what I had lost and what the world had lost and would yet lose again.”

  Shirah

• “I dried my eyes because he asked me to do so. I had always done as he asked, not because I was bound to do so by duty but because I saw the depth of who he was and how he himself suffered. when I gazed at him, I did not see the brutal face his enemies looked upon, or the heavy arms and back of a warrior who carried armor and steel, but the young man at the well who had seen beyond my henna tattoos. He had always known who I was....He whispered that he would prefer to spend what little time we had left in each other's arms. Let us not speak, or tend to our troubles, let us lie together and forget the world, remembering only each other.”

  Shirah

• “Let our story bear witness that we perished out of choice, a choice we made at the beginning, to chose death rather than slavery.”

  Eleazar ben Ya'ir

• “I raised my chin and studied the general who had destroyed us. He was just a man like any other. What would he do if he had to stand before a lion without a spear or a sword to protect him? Here was my secret and my strength: I had spoken to the lion, and this was the reason I lived when I faced him. I had told him that I belonged to him. I had given him my name, and in return he was mine.”

  Yael

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Jerusalem: The location where the novel begins.
• Iron Mountain: Shirah's original home in Moab
• Masada: A mountain fortress in the Judean desert which once was King Herod's palace retreat
• Petra: The village that Shirah, husband and children moved to after before her cousin called them to Masada. (Note: This site was made famous in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.)
• Qumran: An Essene community that Yael visits while in the wilderness seeking something to heal Jachim Ben Simon.
• Alexandria, Egypt: Where the two woman and five children from Masada escape to.

Organizations edit see section history

• Sicarii: Zealots assassins identified by the curved dagger they carried who murdered individuals, especially priests, who would not fight against Rome.
• Zealots: A Jewish religious-political faction who were willing to use violence to overthrow the occupying Roman armies.
• Essenes: A Jewish sect who practices asceticism, pacifism, and voluntary poverty who populated wilderness areas.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• keshaphim: Evil and vengeful magic performed by Jewish witches.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Alice Hoffman (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3558.O3447 D68 2011
• Dewey: 813

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Sex and violence

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Historical

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Early Jewish Writings: Link to the text from The History Of The Destruction Of Jerusalem Book VII where Josephus describes the taking of Masada in chapters 8 and 9.

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history