What I learned about Israeli leadership from Menachem Begin

View this email in a browser

JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NON PROFIT.

Give a tax-deductible donation

Download a PDF of this week's top stories.

Read this newsletter in a browser (and share on social).

They met in pre-war Eastern Europe when she was 17. He was the chairman of Betar, the revisionist Zionist youth movement founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and came to her family's home to raise money. "He fell in love with her immediately," recalls Arye Naor, his longtime colleague.

They married two years later, but then World War II broke out and he was put in a Soviet labor camp. She smuggled a bar of soap into the gulag etched with three letters: O-L-A, the Hebrew word for immigrant to the land of Israel. Reunited in what was then British mandatory Palestine in 1942, they were together, partners, until she died in 1982 -- while he was in Los Angeles. "Lamah azavti otah?" Why oh why did I leave her? a friend recalls him weeping when he heard the news. The next year, amid outrage over Israeli complicity in the massacre at the Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon, he resigned and was barely seen in public again. (He died in 1992.)

He was Menachem Begin, Israel's sixth prime minister and the subject of the documentary "Upheaval," which will be released on Monday via Facebook Live (sign up here to watch). She was Aliza (Arnold) Begin, who The New York Times described as "strong willed but publicity shy" in the first line of her obituary.

"He was never quite the same and he himself could not go on, such was the depth of the bond between his soul and hers," said Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, whose legendary family comes from Brest, the town of Begin's birth, in what is now Belarus. Yona Kimovitsky, Begin's longtime assistant, said simply: "He was completely broken."

The Begins voting in 1977. Ya'acov Sa'ar/Government Press Office, via "Upheaval."

"Upheaval" is not primarily a love story, of course. But throughout it, I was struck by the primacy of Aliza and their relationship in producer-director Jonathan Gruber's portrayal of Begin's life. It reminded me of the way that documentarians and biographers of Ruth Bader Ginsburg universally emphasize the support she got from her husband, Martin. There's a lesson here about the essential but too-often invisible role that partners play in the lives of public figures -- especially when those partners are women.

The world has been focused this week on Israel's political leadership. A deal inked Wednesday between eight disparate political parties could spell the ouster of Benyamin Netanyahu, the Jewish state's longest-serving prime minister. Next in the chair would be Naftali Bennett, a right-wing former high-tech entrepreneur and leader of Yesha, the Israeli settler movement.

Netanyahu's wife, Sara, is a character in her own right, and a key figure in the corruption scandals that in many ways led to his downfall (if this in fact turns out to be his downfall; the fragile coalition deal still has to be approved by Parliament and anybody who knows anything about Netanyahu's political maneuvering prowess would advise against counting him out before the final curtain). Much less is known about Bennett's wife, Gilat, a professional pastry chef; one thing I've always wondered about is how their family life works because Bennett is religiously observant and told me, in a 2012 interview, that she is secular.

As we watch and wait to see what happens next with Bennett and Netanyahu, though, it's interesting to think about other occupants of the prime minister's chair. Begin was the signer of Israel's peace treaty with Egypt in 1978 and shared that year's Nobel Peace Prize with Anwar Sadat. He was also the leader disgraced by the Lebanon War. He helped elevate Mizrahi Jews, immigrants from North Africa and Middle Eastern countries, within Israeli society, and oversaw the rescue of Ethiopian Jews and Vietnamese refugees. He also aggressively expanded West Bank settlements and, as a leader of the Irgun militia in 1948, played a key role in the massacre of Palestinians at Deir Yassin.

"And I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the wilderness."

– MENACHEM BEGIN,

(quoting from Book of Jeremiah)

I watched "Upheaval" during the recent violent conflagration between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, and moderated a panel discussion that will be shown after the Facebook Live premiere on Monday with Gruber, the director; Noar, who was Begin's cabinet secretary during his premiership; Sen. Joe Lieberman; and Lahav Harkov, diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Post.

The film is fascinating for Gruber's choice to situate Begin's story within the context of rising antisemitism in the United States and Europe today, and for its extensive use of archival interviews with Begin himself. We talked about those things on the panel, but I also asked about the love story.

"Some people would say 'he's a terrorist, he's a fascist,' but he was also a lover, and much softer," Gruber said. "He was very sensitive to these things and understood the sacrifices that his dear wife made for him," he added. "He understood that without her, he would have been a very different person. Who knows how she kept him so strong?"

Gruber noted that Begin ran nine times for prime minister before finally winning in 1977. And the first thing he did in his victory speech, shown in the film, was to thank his wife, quoting from the Book of Jeremiah: “And I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the wilderness," then personalizing it with his own twist, "through a land littered with mines." He did the same at a state dinner at the White House in 1979. "I spoke about survival and perseverance," the film shows Begin saying there. "Tonight I would like to thank for that ability to persevere one human being, who is here, who I met when she was 17 years old, my own wife."

Lieberman, who centered his own wife, Hadassah, throughout his public life, said they both cried as they watched Begin's reaction to Aliza's death in "Upheaval."

"It's very moving," he said, describing Begin as "emotionally dependent" on his partner. "It's a lesson to all of us not just to judge somebody on his public life."

Noar, the cabinet secretary, reminded us of a famous photograph, taken in 1978 by the legendary Israeli photographer David Rubinger, which hangs in the El Al lounge at JFK International Airport in New York.

It is an intimate photo, the kind of private moment every chronicler of public figures hopes to capture. Begin, world leader, bending to help Aliza put on her shoe as the plane lands. Begin, the husband. The man.

It is a lesson to all of us, indeed: politicians are multi-dimensional, and we should strive to understand them with nuance and complexity. Them, and also their partners. As well as our own.

Shabbat Shalom! Send me your questions/feedback: rudoren@forward.com

Your Weekend Reads

A FREE, PRINTABLE DOWNLOAD OF STORIES OVER SHABBAT AND SUNDAY

I'm guessing you've spent a lot of time this week reading about Israeli politics. So how about a little Brooklyn politics? Jacob Kornbluh profiled Robert Cornegy -- basketball player, City Council member, borough president hopeful. Or, for something completely different: Meet the nonagenarian inventor of the cellphone, or a 28-year-old Jewish female farmer. Read about how Holocaust survivor stories are being used in self-help books. And the Bintel Brief tackles family dynamics around Zionism.

Join the Conversation

EVENT | "JUNETEENTH 2021" June 17 at 2 p.m. EDT

Rabbi Sandra Lawson of Reconstructing Judaism and Tema Smith, a Forward contributing columnist, will join me for a second-annual conversation about a Jewish approach to this holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. How much has changed in Jewish organizations and communities around issues of race over this past year? Register here.

EVENT | "ISRAEL THERAPY" for the conflicted. JUNE 16 @ 11:30 a.m. EDT

What does it mean to be a Jewish state if Israel rejects how I practice Judaism? Join me, chief therapist Libby Lenkinski of the New Israel Fund, and special guest experts to parse complicated questions of religion and state including non-Orthodox conversions and marriages, egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall, and public transportation on Shabbat. First of a three-part series co-hosted by the Forward and Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center. Register here.

Quote of the Week

Support Independent Jewish Journalism

The Forward is a non-profit 501(c)3 so our journalism depends on support from readers like you.

All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of US law.

Copyright © 2021, The Forward Association, Inc. All rights reserved. The Forward Association, Inc., 125 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038

Click here to unsubscribe from this newsletter.

To stop receiving all emails from the Forward click here.