Non­fic­tion

A Sense of Pur­pose: Recollection

Suzy Eban
  • Review
By – September 9, 2011

In this mem­oir Suzy Eban, wife of the great Israeli states­man Abba Eban, cel­e­brates the excit­ing and chal­leng­ing years just before and fol­low­ing the years of Israeli inde­pen­dence. She describes the dif­fi­cult polit­i­cal real­i­ties of the time as the Mid­dle East jug­gled the Suez Cri­sis and post-World War II Jew­ish immi­grant con­flicts. Groomed to play an impor­tant role in the strug­gle for Israeli inde­pen­dence, Abba and Suzy wend their diplo­mat­ic way through their ser­vice to the Unit­ed Nations and then as ambas­sadors for Israel to America. 

Eban dis­cuss­es two per­ti­nent items that get lit­tle atten­tion else­where in cur­rent his­tor­i­cal accounts. One is the role that wives of Israeli lead­ers played in help­ing their hus­bands in Israeli pol­i­tics, such as Paula Ben Guri­on and Vera Weiz­mann. Their diplo­mat­ic skills and astute sense of the neces­si­ties of the moment make for fas­ci­nat­ing read­ing. The oth­er item of spe­cif­ic note in this mem­oir is the author’s cogent under­stand­ing of how Israel has evolved from a nation shar­ing social­ist and reli­gious foun­da­tions into one that mix­es those two ele­ments with a ris­ing mod­ern, West­ern ide­o­log­i­cal way of under­stand­ing the nation and its rela­tion­ship to the rest of the world. 

The Ebans, like all polit­i­cal fam­i­lies, made many sac­ri­fices, includ­ing hav­ing to con­stant­ly move and uproot their chil­dren. How­ev­er, Suzy Eban does not regret the choic­es she and her hus­band made. She cites the com­ments of peers and even oppo­nents who real­ized after Abba’s” death what a bril­liant, tal­ent­ed man her hus­band was. This beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten, intel­li­gent, and com­pre­hen­sive mem­oir will reward read­ers inter­est­ed in a behind-thescenes under­stand­ing of Israeli his­to­ry and politics.

Deb­o­rah Schoen­e­man, is a for­mer Eng­lish teacher/​Writing Across the Cur­ricu­lum Cen­ter Coor­di­na­tor at North Shore Hebrew Acad­e­my High School and coed­i­tor of Mod­ern Amer­i­can Lit­er­a­ture: A Library of Lit­er­ary Crit­i­cism, Vol. VI, pub­lished in 1997.

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