AMERICAN GREATNESS
The Triumph and Tragedy of Abba Eban
Rick Richman
March 11, 2023

…Eban’s speeches were a record of eloquence unequaled by any diplomat during that period. Conor Cruise O’Brien, representing Ireland in the U.N. (sitting next to Eban in the General Assembly), called him “the most brilliant diplomatist of the second half of the 20th century.”  In 1974, however, Yitzhak Rabin left Eban out of his new Israeli government, and Eban never again held a ministerial job. By 1988, he was so low on the Labor Party electoral slate that he was not reelected to the Knesset. Humiliated, he retired from political life, relocated to New York, and spent the rest of his life teaching, writing, and speaking. Eban’s meteoric rise and dramatic fall was a classic tragedy—and one that extended beyond his personal political career. It holds a lesson for today. READ MORE

THE NEW YORK SUN Israel Finds a New Storyteller  Changes to the judiciary are on the way. Plenty of people are afraid for Israel these days, which makes the timing of Rick Richman’s “And None Shall Make Them Afraid: Eight Stories of the Modern State of Israel” all the more fortuitous. A Zionist “Profiles in Courage,” it is a briskly written reminder that giving up on the Jewish state is a bad bet.  Mr. Richman, author of “Racing Against History: The 1940 Campaign for a Jewish Army to Fight Hitler,” here aims to give “full due” to eight drivers of what he names as the two most successful ideologies of the last century: Zionism and Americanism. 

VIRTUAL EVENT
Zionism, Americanism, and the Modern State of Israel
Tuesday April 25, 2023
12:00 PM – 12:45 PM PDT
Click here to register

On the day before Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary, join AJU Scholar in Residence Rick Richman and AJU Distinguished Professor of Jewish History Michael Berenbaum for a discussion of Richman’s new book, And None Shall Make Them Afraid: Eight Stories of the Modern State of Israel. Dive into the history of how Zionism, supported by Americanism, created a modern miracle – told through the little-known stories of eight individuals who collectively changed Jewish history. These individuals, whose stories span from 1895 to 2015, include Chaim Weizmann, Louis Brandeis, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Ben Hecht, and Golda Meir.