Gor­don Zacks is one of those peo­ple whose activ­i­ties seem to be suf­fi­cient for sev­er­al lives: a busi­ness leader who helped grow a com­pa­ny for five decades, a major fundrais­er for the UJA and pro-Israel caus­es, a trust­ed advi­sor to Repub­li­can pres­i­dents. And, through those mul­ti­ple exis­tences, he has met many fas­ci­nat­ing peo­ple. This book is a col­lec­tion of meet­ings with a slew of them, from the Sha­ran­skys to David Ben Guri­on to Ronald Rea­gan and George Bush. 

Each of the sto­ries has sev­er­al parts; first, a short biog­ra­phy places the back­ground of the per­son­age before the read­er. Sec­ond, a sto­ry, usu­al­ly one that played out in the author’s pres­ence, and final­ly, a bit of wis­dom that Zacks has gleaned from the encounter. Writ­ten enter­tain­ing­ly in a clear and con­cise fash­ion, Defin­ing Moments strives to be a mod­ern Plutarch’s Lives. Where­as, ulti­mate­ly, the reader’s opin­ion will be influ­enced by his pri­or opin­ion of each par­tic­u­lar dig­ni­tary, Zacks has been able to shed more than a bit of light on recent his­to­ry. Appen­dices, index, photos.