Whose Side Is God On?
By: Golda Radafsky Alo’el’s Dissent is a sci fi thriller that is based on the inexplicable paradox inherent in God’s creation of man. On the
ALO’EL’S DISSENT BY
Salem M Katsh
Alo’el’s Dissent is a thrilling adventure story about a millennia-long search for the magical breastplate worn three thousand years ago by the high priest in the temple King Solomon built in Jerusalem. As the temple is being destroyed by Babylonian invaders, the last high priest, Zadok, hides the breastplate on Elephantine Island in Egypt.
The book traces the growth of Daniel Ornstein from a boy with unnatural birthmarks into an adult who falls in love with an Israeli army captain and leads an expedition to the island to find the breastplate. In the battle royale between Daniel’s group and fanatics from the three major Abrahamic religions, his paranormal birthmarks prove the key to securing the divine artifact.
His heroic actions will allow mankind to alter the human genome and expunge “the inclination of his heart to do evil from its youth.” (Gen. 8:21). No longer would compliance with the Tenth Commandment—thou shalt not covet– be the only commandment inherently beyond humanity’s capacity to obey.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Salem Michael Katsh is a scion of a famous Jewish family that traces its lineage through generations of chief rabbis and Hebrew scholars. After attending a Jewish day school in Manhattan, he studied at the Hebrew University in Israel and then graduated with the highest honors from New York University School of Law. He practiced law as a partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, and Shearman & Sterling.
Katsh co-authored with Ira M. Millstein, The Limits of Corporate Power (Macmillan 1981; 2d ed. Beard Books 2003) and wrote more than forty articles for legal journals. Katsh has been recognized in every major survey of elite professionals—Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the Law, Who’s Who in the World, Best Lawyers in America, and the coveted Chambers survey. He retired from the practice of law in 2017 to work full-time on writing fictional historical novels drawing on his Jewish heritage.
ALO’EL’S DISSENT BY
Salem M Katsh
Alo’el’s Dissent tells an historically-framed fictional adventure about the search for eighteen magical tablets that the deities who created the world left behind. The tablets contain a formula by which humanity’s destructive nature, which has led to untold death and suffering, can be inhibited.
The key to finding the tablets is a magical breastplate worn by the high priest in King Solomon’s temple. When the temple was destroyed in 586 BCE, the high priest hid the breastplate on Elephantine Island in Egypt. There it rested undisturbed until Daniel Ornstein--born with mystical birthmarks which tormented him with preternatural visions and dreams--leads an expedition to the island to find the breastplate. But Daniel’s group cannot keep the purpose of their search a secret. Knowledge of the breastplate’s location spurs a conflict threatening humanity’s very existence.
Extremist Israelis want the breastplate as justification for building a third temple and conquering all the Arab lands falling within the wide borders of the Promised Land as drawn by the Bible. Paradoxically, Evangelical Christianity wants the Jews to establish such a Greater Israel but the Christians’ fundamental objective is to fulfill the requirements for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The extremists of Islam, the third Abrahamic religion, have an even more subtle but equally audacious objective. Led by Iran’s fanatical clergy, they envision a war between a Greater Israel and the Christian community which will lead to a post world-war Caliphate centered in Tehran.
