Yutka And the Voyage of the Parita is based on a true story of courage, grief, and love. Rich in historical accuracy and authentic characters, Yutka And the Voyage of the Parita is an impassioned look into seventeen- year-old Yutka Lipka's harrowing escape to British Mandate Palestine, the grisly fate of her family at the hands of the Nazis, and the triumph of Israeli independence. In 1939, avoiding the growing anti-Semitic violence, and unable to convince her family to emigrate, Yutka joins 850 young Jewish refugees on a voyage to the Land of Israel aboard the Parita. Captain Mikhailovich, however, refuses to break the British blockade. Their seven-day crossing swells to forty-two days as authorities in every port refuse to sell them food and water. They endure starvation and dehydration waiting for smaller transfer boats that never appear. Finally, Parita's Commander Leibovitz leads a mutiny and crashes the Parita onto the beach at Tel Aviv. Even eight years after the last postcard from her family, Yutka refuses to give up hope that they survived the Holocaust. She carries the burden of guilt for the rest of her life. Yutka's letters, journals and photographs, provided by her son, Sam Regev Ph.D., author of My Call of Abraham, helped make Yutka And the Voyage of the Parita an authentic account of her journey.
