cover image Nehemiah: Statesman and Sage

Nehemiah: Statesman and Sage

Dov S. Zakheim. Koren/Maggid, $27.95 (262p) ISBN 978-1-59264-369-1

Zakheim, a rabbi who is best known for his stints as an under secretary of defense in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, proves an adept expositor of a relatively unknown biblical text. This self-styled "political biography" makes a convincing case that Nehemiah, who was the highest-ranking Jew in the Persian court during the reign of Emperor Artaxerxes I in the fifth century BCE, was an unsung hero. Zakheim is not at all oblivious to Nehemiah's faults: "He was self-centered. He saw himself as superior to his predecessors. He was stingy when it came to giving credit to others." But he places those very human flaws in their proper context, through close study of the biblical Book of Nehemiah as well as rabbinical and historical sources. Nehemiah emerges from the author's logical analyses as a figure worthy of more study and acclaim%E2%80%94a man who restored Jewish national pride and "imposed a social and religious order based on tradition, justice, and decency." Some readers may find Zakheim's repeated efforts to link Nehemiah's actions and thoughts to contemporary political personalities and events a distracting stretch, but the speculation does not diminish the overall strengths of this well-written study, which is fully accessible to the non-scholar. (Aug.)