Jabotinsky

A Life (Jewish Lives)

De: Hillel Halkin

Narrado por: Peter Lerman

Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880–1940) was a man of huge paradoxes and contradictions and has been the most misunderstood of all Zionist politicians—a first-rate novelist, a celebrated Russian journalist, and the founder of the branch of Zionism now headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. This biography, the first in English in nearly two decades, undertakes to answer central questions about Jabotinsky as a writer, a political thinker, and a leader. Hillel Halkin sets aside the stereotypes to which Jabotinsky has been reduced by his would-be followers and detractors alike.

Halkin explains the importance of Odessa, Jabotinsky’s native city, in molding his character and outlook; discusses his novels and short stories, showing the sometimes hidden connections between them and Jabotinsky’s political thought, and studies a political career that ended in tragic failure. Halkin also addresses Jabotinsky’s position, unique among the great figures of Zionist history, as both a territorial maximalist and a principled believer in democracy. The author inquires why Jabotinsky was often accused of fascist tendencies though he abhorred authoritarian and totalitarian politics, and investigates the many opposed aspects of his personality and conduct while asking whether or not they had an ultimate coherence. Few figures in twentieth-century Jewish life were quite so admired and loathed, and Halkin’s splendid, subtle book explores him with empathy and lucidity.

The book is published by Yale University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2014 Hillel Halkin (P)2024 Redwood Audiobooks

Reseñas de la Crítica

“A beautifully written short biography of an exceedingly interesting man...” (New York Review of Books)

“A revelatory exploration of Vladimir Jabotinsky.” (Jewish Chronicle)

“A well-written, passionate survey of Jabotinsky’s life and contributions to political Zionism.” (Los Angeles Review of Books)

Well done biography

The author gives great insight into Jabotinsky’s goals for a Jewish Palestine. Forced to remain out of Palestine in the 1930s, Jabotinsky appears to have been more of a symbolic head than the practical leader of Irgun.

Superb history, of Jabotinsky and times.

Given the never-ending chaos and polarizations relating to Zionism as we are clearly seeing, the monumental importance of men like Jabotinsky is increasingly vital. This was a superb book not only covering Jabotinsky's life but how the surrounding ideas and circumstances shaped his views and oh so much more. Great history of Zionism and related players as well. Just one of the best history books I've come across in general. A hidden gem.

Very decent

I would prefer to hear more insights into the ideas that Jabotinsky and others involved held, political background etc and less biographical anecdotes

A disappointing performance

The subject is an important one and deserves a better author and a better narrator.
Halkin seems not to know how to organize a mass of complex material. We are told much we don't need to know and not enough of what we do. His literary style is pedestrian and excessively prolix.
Jacobinsky is such a fundamental figure not only to Jewish history but to the history of the twentieth (and now the twenty-first) century that he deserves magisterial treatment of the type Lord Roberts has recently given to Churchill or Jackson has given to De Gaulle. His English prose is humdrum when not hackneyed. He wanders off on irrelevant by-paths. It's true he had a relatively small space to tell his story-- some 236 pages -- but he has wasted much of it on extraneous matters. This book falls far below the level of some othe other titles in the series which I have read with much pleasure and profit.
Like many others I have found the spoken narration jarring. The speaker is a deeply uncultured. man. What a comparison with the other titles in audible, where the narrator is often as distinguished as the book itself.

One of the worst biographies I've ever listened to

How can one make the life story of Jabotinsky boring?
1. Have a translator/literary figure right the biography instead of an historian. Halkin has a distinguished career. But a vast amount of the book is about Jabotinsky's so-called literary works, which were trivial. I ended up skipping vast portions of detail about unimportant plays and novels.
2. Use the worst narrator I've ever heard on an audio book. It would have been better to use a computer-generated voice circa 1980.