Sometimes reading like official government propaganda for the 50th anniversary of Israeli statehood, Bar-Zohar’s collection of paeans to Zionist sacrifice and courage nonetheless forms an impressive statement about a beleaguered people’s will to exist. A bestseller in Israel, Bar-Zohar’s anthology of biographical essays covers a century of brave actions. Heroes before the founding of the State of Israel include soldier and pioneer Joseph Trumpeldor, whose celebrated quotation “It is good to die for our country” has echoed down through Israeli history. Other “trailblazers” of the years 1897—1939 and wartime heroes 1939—1947 are Sarah Aronson of the underground organization known as NILI; British captain Orde Wingate, who told his men, “You are the first soldiers of the Jewish army”; Hannah Senesh, who parachuted into Nazi-occupied Hungary; and the Warsaw Ghetto fighter Morechai Anielewicz. To the anthology’s credit, both women and men are represented, as well as non-warrior’s (like Janusz Korczak, the “father to orphans” who perished in Treblinka death camp) and the little-known, like Meir “Zaro” Zorea, the farmer turned reluctant fighter and politician, who is Israel’s equivalent of the emperor Cincinnatus. Most of the writers of these biographical sketches are familiar, and several are major war heroes and/or political leaders, including Raful Eitan, Itzhak Navon, Shevach Weiss, Itzhak Shamir, Uzi Narkiss, Zevulun Hammer, Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres, Chaim Herzog, Ezer Weizmann, Ehud Barak, Avigdor Kahalani, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Some of the author-subject match-ups are intriguing, such as having Shimon Peres write about Entebbe rescue hero Yoni Netanyahu, who’s brother (Benjamin) beat Peres at the polls. The reader who makes it through these 50 biographies gets a front-row view of the struggles and sacrifices that have contributed to Israel’s improbable survival. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: May 4, 1998
ISBN: 0-446-52358-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
