Believe it or not...but, even though I had "read" the Bible in church..
MY love of the Jewish people developed when I started reading books by Leon Uris...they just told of the courage and strength..and all of the hard times.
His book "The Haj"...is the one that really clued me in on some of the thought processes of Arabs and Muslims...
I've been reading that book over & over for about three years now.
Excellent- his books are marvelous!