Jewish Statesmanship: Ten Studies in Leadership

(Hardback)

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Ever since PlatosRepublicewish scholars, thinkers, and popularizers have contributed notably to this genre, strikingly few have turned their attention to the history of Jewish leadersthat is, leaders specifically of the Jewish peoplein particular.

And yet there has been no lack of such outstanding figures, from the biblical period of Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land and once again in present-day Israel or during the millennia of exile and formal Jewish statelessness in the Diaspora. This book, devoted to ten of the most colorful, fascinating, and consequential Jewish political leaders over the past threemillennia, fills the gap.

Among the ten, men and women alike, some were firmly bound to Judaic religious teachings and others less so, but guiding all of them was the fixed lodestar of their own Jewish identity. By the mid-20th century, the legacy of past generations would inspire modern successors bent on the re-founding of the sovereign Jewish state, one of the greatest political feats in human history.

In delving into the unique circumstances and predicaments faced by these ten, and into the characteristics that mark them and their statesmanship as specifically Jewish, readers will also become familiar with what Jewish tradition has to say about the demands of statesmanship and, by inference, with the qualities needed by successful Jewish political leaders encountering the challenges of today and tomorrow.

Author Bio

Born and raised in Chicago, Meir Soloveichik attended Yeshiva College in New York, studied religious philosophy at the Yale Divinity School, and earned his PhD in religion from Princeton University. He serves as Director of Yeshiva Universitys Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought and as Rabbi at Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. Soloveichik has published widely on both Jewish and American history and has lectured around the world on the intersection of religious and political thought.Most recently,Bible 365, a six-days-a-week podcast that guides listeners through the entire Hebrew Bible, has struck a deep chord among audiences religious and non-religious alike.Soloveichik has testified before the U.S. Congress on the subjects of law and religion and served as a member of the State Departments Commission on Inalienable Human Rights.