Harel is the subject of a biography in Hebrew by Yoram Kaniuk, Exodus: The Odyssey of a Commander (1999), which has been translated into many languages.[5] He rose to fame after the release of the 1960 Otto Preminger film Exodus, which was based on the 1958 Leon Uris novel of the same name. His character in the novel, Ari Ben Canaan, was portrayed by Paul Newman.[6]