Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship

Rabbi Soloveichik (co-editor, Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land) underwhelms in these superficial profiles of Jewish leaders who harnessed their “power on the behalf of [their] people.” Among other selective accounts that tend to omit all but his subjects’ most laudable traits, Soloveichik praises King David’s “monarchical magnificence” but glosses over less flattering biblical accounts, including how he sent Uriah the Hittite to his death to hide that he’d slept with Uriah’s wife. The discussion of Menachem Begin (1913–1992) proves similarly uneven, as it frames the Israeli prime minister as “the ultimate embodiment of Jewish statesmanship” but fails to discuss Begin’s role in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which led to the massacre of Palestinians by Lebanese Christians in Israeli-controlled areas. Even Begin’s landmark peace treaty with Egypt is given short shrift in a recap that focuses on distracting anecdotes, including Begin’s insistence that Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s arrival in Israel not conflict with the Sabbath. Soloveichik casts an admirably wide net, spotlighting the biblical Esther as well as British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, but his tendency to skate over less flattering facts and rely on sometimes-problematic sources, such as the works of historian Josephus, undercuts the profiles’ rigor. Readers seeking more nuanced analyses of Jewish leadership will be better served by Michael Walzer’s In God’s Shadow. (June)