Many are the Jews these days who view Israel simply as a “hotspot” on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean  – youthful, dynamic and wired or, alternatively, militarily entangled and too politically problematic. They forget entirely, indeed if they ever knew, that this tiny modern country has its true origins in the collective aspirations and actions of Jewish men and women over the many years since they were exiled from Judea by the Romans in the first and second centuries CE. 

Although Israel is merely 66 years old, it is rooted in the ancient Jewish sources: theology, history and culture.  Some people would prefer that Israel govern and conduct itself without any regard to its ancient roots. Others wish those roots would entwine all of the country’s institutions. Between those two extremes lies the pre-eminent creative tension that occupies Israel’s domestic agenda today.

Israel’s Jewish rootedness might seem an odd starting point in a discussion of a biography about Menachem Begin, one of the country’s founding fathers. It is, however, the recurring theme of the thoughtful, perceptive and uniquely focused work by Daniel Gordis entitled Menachem Begin, The Battle for Israel’s Soul, recently published by Nextbook and Schocken Press as part of the Jewish Encounters Series. More specifically, Gordis elegantly shows us how Jewish rootedness, in all its profound, expansive, demanding manifestations, was the defining quality of the complex character that was Menachem Begin.

North American readers, in particular, will be familiar with Gordis’ writing. His social and political commentary appears regularly in leading publications such as the Jerusalem Post, The New Republic and the New York Times. He is the author of several books that explore with courage and sensitivity various aspects of life in Israel and modern Jewish identity. He is a straightforward writer who can approach contentious issues with nuanced reasoning and fresh insight. 

The book is not a conventional biography. Gordis does not record the day-in, day-out details of Begin’s nearly 80 years. Nor does he arrange and explore the full chronology of the man’s correspondence or piece together into one fully formed portrait all the dichotomous parts and tantalizing aspects of the Polish-born underground fighter, opposition leader and prime minister.

Rather, Gordis paints his portrait over 16 concise chapters, each of which examines Begin’s involvement in critically important moments of history. Each adds a stroke of colour and depth to Gordis’ evocative and piercing final image of the once fiery orator who entered a mystifying seclusion from public life nine years before he died, with the sad and plaintive cry: “I cannot go on.”

Gordis explains the parameters of the biography at the outset. “This book makes no attempt to offer itself as a definitive biography…My goal was to bring his extraordinary life to the attention of an even wider audience and to look at his life through the lens of the passion he still evokes…What was it about him that touched so deep a nerve in the Jewish people, as well as in non-Jews, in Israel and throughout the world?

“Perhaps most important, I hope that this book will lead us all to examine once again what it was about Menachem Begin’s view of the world that led him to defend this people with such devotion, and what it is about rediscovering his legacy that might prompt us to do the same?”

The Jewish Encounters Series is a recent project aimed at introducing new generations of readers to intriguing “people, ideas and events from the Jewish past.” The publishers take great pride in commissioning individuals “of the first rank” to write about their respective subjects “in a lively, intelligent, and popular manner.” 

To date, 24 titles have been published in the series; at least nine more are scheduled to appear. It is a tribute to the editors of the project that they included Begin on their list. In certain elite quarters in North America and in Europe, he was disdained as a demagogue and a terrorist.  It is a further tribute to the editors that they asked Gordis to write Begin’s story, for he has persuasively cast those mischaracterizations into the waste can. 

Despite his high regard for Begin, Gordis does not shy away from the widely known, controversial incidents in Begin’s story. Whether discussing the bombing of the King David Hotel, the military action at Deir Yassin, the explosive public debate concerning reparations for Israel from Germany, Begin’s frosty relations with former U.S. president Jimmy Carter or his excessive reliance upon Ariel Sharon during the war in Lebanon, Gordis explores the subjects fully and without recoil.

At a certain point in the book, it becomes evident that during the research and writing of the work, Gordis developed a deep respect, even at times a reverence, for Begin. 

A sense of Begin’s extraordinariness infuses the biography.  This is perhaps best illustrated in the author’s concluding remarks.  

“[T]here was  one unwavering constant, a guiding principle that shaped everything. Begin’s was a life of selfless devotion to his people, the Jewish people. It was a life in which determination eradicated fear, hope overcame despondency, love overcame hate and devotion to both Jews and human beings everywhere coexisted with ease and grace. It was, more than anything, a life of great loyalty – to the people into which he was born, to the woman he loved from the moment he met her, and to the state that he helped create.

“That is a legacy infinitely greater than most are able to bequeath. In an era in which many are increasingly dubious about the legitimacy of love for a specific people or devotion to its ancestral homeland, the life and commitments of Menachem Begin urge us to look again at what he did and what he stood for and to imagine – if we dare – the glory of a Jewish people recommitted to the principles that shaped his very being.”

This is Gordis’ ultimate plea to the reader of his engaging biography of Begin: to hold dear to our hearts and precious in our souls the stories, values, history and traditions that have combined over millennia to form the wondrous Jewish people.