Fighter and Prophet: The Last Years

by Joseph B. Schechtman, Adolph Gourevitch (Afterword)

Book by Joseph B. Schechtman, Eshel Books, 1986

Genres: Jewish, Biography

643 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Andrew Pessin]

I read every damn word of this masterpiece, all 599 pages, and that on top of having read every damn word of volume ONE of the masterpiece, which was almost as long -- and by masterpiece I am ultimately referring to the man himself, Jabotinsky. Love him or hate him, or both, this is a man whose life was a masterpiece, a man of letters, of politics, of culture, whose ability to foresee what was coming on nearly every front was nearly equal to that of a Biblical prophet's (actually better, the Bible's prophets usually got it wrong!). A natural leader, he was a man who, unlike most Jews (who have been conditioned for centuries by the ghetto mentality, even where, especially where, they have most successfully assimilated), was not embarrassed to be a Jew -- from which everything follows. This biography was written by one of his closest colleagues, and while it is largely a very flattering portrait it does not hesitate to present the views and objections of Jabotinsky's many and most vocal critics, and occasionally even side with them ... Schechtman's Jabotinsky is a very human one, with flaws, who makes mistakes -- but who was a masterpiece anyway. These two volumes are inordinately long, but every student of Zionism, including every critic of Zionism, should read them.