Raised in a nonreligious Jewish family, Charles London knew hisheritage but had no strong desire to experience it personally. Thenin the summer of 2004, while doing relief work in Bosnia, he stumbled upon a remarkable community--where Jews worked alongside Muslims and Christians to rebuild a city ravaged by war. This encounter gave him the idea for a journey that would take him aroundthe world and back to his roots.

Far from Zion is the story of Jews in far-flung, often surprising places. Despite efforts by Israel to bring these scattered people home to Zion, they have chosen to remain in the lands of their birth: a shopkeeper selling Jewish trinkets in Iran, a caretaker keeping watch over an all-but-forgotten synagogue in Rangoon, revelers at a Hanukkah celebration in an Arkansas bowling alley, a Cuban engineering professor, proud of his Jewish heritage and prouder still of his Communist ideals. It is through their stories and many others that London examines his own identity, as he, too, struggles to come to terms with his connection to Zion.

This is an inspiring and often times heartbreaking memoir of one man's work with child soldiers, refugees, and children orphaned by civil war. Through the stories and drawings of children from Congo, Burma, Kosovo, Sudan, and Rwanda - the sites of some of the most violent upheavals of the past decade - we see the invisible narrative of the young as they experience, understand, and are shaped by the conflicts around them. These stories are sometimes painful, sometimes triumphant, sometimes funny, and sometimes terrifying. In that regard, they represent an accurate picture of war and are a valuable alternative to the politically-charged rhetoric we are given in our news reports. Told with compassion and eye-opening frankness, this is beasts of no nation told from the outside looking in - but all true.