Justice and ethics during a military situation serve as the major social concerns of Dawn, Elie Wiesel's first novel. Elisha is an eighteen-year-old Holocaust survivor recruited by Gad for a Jewish terrorist organization that fights for Jewish sovereignty in Palestine, years before Israel was created (1948). The British have caught and sentenced to death ten Jewish members of the organization, and they plan to execute the most recent prisoner (the tenth, David ben Moshe) whom they have caught in hope of deterring future Jewish terrorist activities; the group, however, decides to seek revenge this time. They capture their own hostage, an innocent British officer named John Dawson, whom they kidnap as he takes a walk; they hope that they can save their friend ben Moshe by exchanging prisoners; the British refuse to deal with the Jews, stating that such a trade would incite future kidnapings. Actually, the...