Showing posts with label Yehuda Avner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yehuda Avner. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Yehuda Avner's 10 Commandments
Ambassador Yehuda Avner is the 84-year-old rock star of Jewish media these days.
His 2010 memoir, “The Prime Ministers,” based on the notes he took as a senior advisor to five Israeli prime ministers in their private meetings with world leaders, is still a best-seller and still in hard cover. A full-length documentary film, based on the book, will have its New York premiere on May 7.
Sandra Bullock is the voice of Golda Meir, and Christoph Waltz, the Austrian actor who won an Academy Award for his chilling performance as a Nazi officer in “Inglorious Basterds,” is the voice of Yitzhak Rabin. And a feature film is due out next year, also based on “The Prime Ministers.”
Avner charmed an overflow audience of more than 300 people at a Jewish Week Forum last week at The Jewish Center. I was honored to be the moderator and his straight man in an hour-long conversation that he closed by offering up his own 10 Commandments.
In response to the many attendees who asked for a copy of them, here they are:
- When an enemy of our people says he seeks to destroy us, believe him.
- Stand tall in the knowledge that every tyrant in history who has ever sought our destruction has himself been destroyed.
- Protect Jewish dignity and honor at all cost. Life is holy, but there are times when one must risk life for the sake of life itself.
- Never raise a hand against a fellow Jew no matter the provocation.
- Give the enemy no quarter in demolishing his malicious propaganda.
- Whenever a threat against a fellow Jew looms, do all in your power to come to his aid, whatever the sacrifice.
- Never pause to wonder what others will think or say.
- Be forever loyal to the historic truth that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people and Jerusalem its eternal capital.
- Love peace, but love freedom more.
- (Which is really Number 1): Build Jewish homes not by the accident of birth, but by the conviction of our eternal Torah.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Yehuda Avner on Israeli Prime Ministers and U.S. Presidents
Amb. Yehuda Avner, advisor to five Israeli prime ministers and author of the best-selling "The Prime Ministers," discusses "The Evolving Relations between the U.S. and Israel." The strategic interests of a global superpower are inevitably not synonymous with those of a small regional power. Few of Israel's prime ministers avoided differences of opinion and sometimes outright confrontations with American presidents.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Independence Day, 1948
The Jerusalem Post didn't format this excellent piece into paragraphs, so I did:
May 14, 1948, was a Friday, and unbearably hot. A desert wind blew from the east, fanning the countryside like a blow-dryer.
For three consecutive sun-grilled days we had been hacking trenches out of a Jerusalem mountainside on the city's western edge - where Yad Vashem now stands - overlooking the Arab village of Ein Kerem. There were about 25 of us, armed with pickaxes, shovels, and a dozen World War I rifles - an inglorious bucket brigade of diggers, fortifying a narrow sector of Jerusalem's western front.
In truth, there was no real frontline where we were, and, other than sporadic sniper fire and an occasional mortar shell, it was quiet. But rumor had it that Iraqi irregulars were infiltrating into Ein Kerem to join up with a Jordanian brigade coming up from Jericho, to launch an offensive that night against besieged western Jerusalem. We were supposed to stop them, but nobody knew how, least of all the man in charge, a fellow called Elisha Linder. With 12 obsolete rifles and a motley, untrained crew like ours, what was he supposed to do?
One insuperable problem was his lack of communication with the outside world - no field phone, no intelligence, not even a radio. So, in the absence of solid facts amorphous rumors mushroomed: Ben-Gurion had capitulated to Washington not to declare independence; the British were not quitting Palestine; Arab armies were invading; Arab governments were suing for peace.
In truth, thirst, not Arabs, was our foe that day. I was delegated as a water-carrier with another fellow, lugging drink from a distant well for the diggers. The other fellow was a Holocaust survivor named Leopold Mahler, grand-nephew of the composer, and himself a violinist. Mahler was a craggy, disillusioned sort whose most cherished possession was his violin, which he carried strapped into a knapsack on his back. With the mountainside cisterns contaminated, the nearest water was in an abandoned orchard a mile away. To get to it we had to run a snipers' gauntlet, up a steep zigzag path to the crest of the mountain, and then sprint down to the orchard on the other side. There, in the shade of the trees, was the well, its water murky but cool. We hauled it back in jerry cans, two to a man. And the only way to drink it was through a handkerchief so as not to swallow the bugs.
Clambering up the zigzag path on that late Friday afternoon, a sniper's bullet whistled past Mahler's face and sliced clean through a tree branch as thick as salami, just above his head. With a brittle crack, the severed bough struck his violin case so sharply it forced him to his knees. He looked up at me dazed. "My violin," he gulped. "It's shattered. I'm finished." I GRABBED him by the shoulders and exhorted him to pull himself together. But he pushed me off, raised himself onto a rock, unstrapped the knapsack, and very gently pulled out his wooden violin case. It was cracked. Cautiously, he opened the lid and lifted out the instrument, turning it this way and that, sliding his eyes very slowly over every inch of it. To me, it looked as exquisite and delicate as a butterfly. Mahler pursed his lips to blow off the grime, took the violin under his chin and, with closed eyes, meticulously tuned each string. Delicately he replaced the instrument, and returned the cracked case to the knapsack and strapped it onto his back. While so doing he said, "My violin is perfect. If I don't survive, give it to the Philharmonic." "That's daft talk," I said, and we picked up our load and, stumbling over rocks and tripping through thickets of dry thistles, we sprinted back to the diggers on the mountainside.
There, Linder filled us in on the latest batch of rumors to come his way: the Arabs were plundering downtown Jerusalem; a coordinated Arab offensive was under way; the British were siding with the Arabs. "We're totally blind up here," he groused, and he instructed Mahler to hitch a ride into town by whatever means, and find out what was actually going on. "Come back with hard news," he commanded.
As the sun went down grimy, exhausted diggers assembled in the glow of a hurricane lamp hanging on the door of a stone ruin, hidden from enemy view, to recite the Sabbath eve prayers - Kabbalat Shabbat. It was a heavenly pause; Shabbat stillness seemed to reign over everything. But then a shell shrieked and blasted the lower reaches of the mountainside, and a headlight briefly cut through the cypress trees at the approaches to Ein Kerem, and we all rolled, crawled, and scrambled for cover. Utter silence followed, broken only by the crunch of rushing feet, panting breath, and the winded cry of Leopold Mahler running out of the blackness into the light of the hurricane lamp by the stone ruin, shouting, "I have news. I have news."
To a man we scampered back into the flickering glow where Linder grabbed him by the arms and snapped, "Well - talk. What did you find out? Are the Arabs plundering downtown Jerusalem?" Mahler wheezed not. On the contrary, the Jews had taken over the whole area. And to vividly substantiate his claim he opened his shabby coat wide and began pulling from its bulging pockets forgotten luxuries like triangles of Kraft cheese, Mars bars, and Cadbury chocolate. Then, he unstrapped his knapsack, and from its side pockets spilled out cans of peaches, jars of Ovaltine, and a bottle of Carmel wine.
We watched, eyes popping, as Mahler told how he had come by his booty: It was from the abandoned officers' mess of the British police headquarters near Zion Square. The English had evacuated the whole area that morning. Moreover, all Union Jacks throughout the country had been hauled down preparatory to midnight when British rule of Palestine would end.
"Has Ben-Gurion declared independence, yes or no?" asked Linder, beside himself with impatience. "David Ben-Gurion declared independence this afternoon in Tel Aviv. The Jewish state comes into being at midnight."
There was a dead silence. Midnight was minutes away. Even the air seemed to be holding its breath. "Oh, my God, what have we done?" cried one of the women diggers, fitfully rubbing her chin with the tips of her fingers. "What have we done? Oh, my God, what have we done?" and she burst into tears, whether in ecstasy or dismay I will never know.
Then cheers, tears, embraces. Every breast filled with exultation as we pumped hands, cuddled, kissed, in an ovation that went on and on. Nobody wanted it to stop.
"Hey, Mahler!" shouted Linder cutting through the hullabaloo, "Our state - what's its name?"
The violinist stared back blankly. "I don't know. I didn't think to ask."
"You don't know?" Mahler shook his head.
"How about Yehuda?" suggested someone.
"King David's kingdom was Yehuda - Judea." "Zion," cried another.
"It's an obvious choice." "Israel!" called a third. "What's wrong with Israel?"
"Let's drink to that," said Elisha with delight, grabbing hold of a tin mug and filling it to the brim. "A lehaim to the new state, whatever its name."
"Wait!" shouted a hassid whom everybody knew as Nussen der hazzan - a cantor by calling, and a most diligent volunteer digger from the ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim Jerusalem quarter. "It's Shabbos. Kiddush first."
Our crowd gathered around him in a hush as Nussen der hazzan clasped the mug and, in a sweet cantorial tone began to chant "Yom hashishi" - the blessing for the sanctification of the Sabbath day.
As Nussen's sacred verses floated off to a higher place of Sabbath bliss, some of us sobbed uncontrollably. Like a violin, his voice swelled, ululated, and trilled in the night, octave upon octave, his eyes closed, his cup stretched out and up. And as he concluded the final consecration - "Blessed art thou O Lord, who has hallowed the Sabbath" - he rose on tiptoe, his arm stiffened, and rocking back and forth like an ecstatic rabbi, voice trembling with excitement, he added the triumphantly exulted festival blessing to commemorate having reached this day - sheheheyanu, vekiyemanu vehegiyanu lezman hazeh."
"Amen!"
May 14, 1948, was a Friday, and unbearably hot. A desert wind blew from the east, fanning the countryside like a blow-dryer.
For three consecutive sun-grilled days we had been hacking trenches out of a Jerusalem mountainside on the city's western edge - where Yad Vashem now stands - overlooking the Arab village of Ein Kerem. There were about 25 of us, armed with pickaxes, shovels, and a dozen World War I rifles - an inglorious bucket brigade of diggers, fortifying a narrow sector of Jerusalem's western front.
In truth, there was no real frontline where we were, and, other than sporadic sniper fire and an occasional mortar shell, it was quiet. But rumor had it that Iraqi irregulars were infiltrating into Ein Kerem to join up with a Jordanian brigade coming up from Jericho, to launch an offensive that night against besieged western Jerusalem. We were supposed to stop them, but nobody knew how, least of all the man in charge, a fellow called Elisha Linder. With 12 obsolete rifles and a motley, untrained crew like ours, what was he supposed to do?
One insuperable problem was his lack of communication with the outside world - no field phone, no intelligence, not even a radio. So, in the absence of solid facts amorphous rumors mushroomed: Ben-Gurion had capitulated to Washington not to declare independence; the British were not quitting Palestine; Arab armies were invading; Arab governments were suing for peace.
In truth, thirst, not Arabs, was our foe that day. I was delegated as a water-carrier with another fellow, lugging drink from a distant well for the diggers. The other fellow was a Holocaust survivor named Leopold Mahler, grand-nephew of the composer, and himself a violinist. Mahler was a craggy, disillusioned sort whose most cherished possession was his violin, which he carried strapped into a knapsack on his back. With the mountainside cisterns contaminated, the nearest water was in an abandoned orchard a mile away. To get to it we had to run a snipers' gauntlet, up a steep zigzag path to the crest of the mountain, and then sprint down to the orchard on the other side. There, in the shade of the trees, was the well, its water murky but cool. We hauled it back in jerry cans, two to a man. And the only way to drink it was through a handkerchief so as not to swallow the bugs.
Clambering up the zigzag path on that late Friday afternoon, a sniper's bullet whistled past Mahler's face and sliced clean through a tree branch as thick as salami, just above his head. With a brittle crack, the severed bough struck his violin case so sharply it forced him to his knees. He looked up at me dazed. "My violin," he gulped. "It's shattered. I'm finished." I GRABBED him by the shoulders and exhorted him to pull himself together. But he pushed me off, raised himself onto a rock, unstrapped the knapsack, and very gently pulled out his wooden violin case. It was cracked. Cautiously, he opened the lid and lifted out the instrument, turning it this way and that, sliding his eyes very slowly over every inch of it. To me, it looked as exquisite and delicate as a butterfly. Mahler pursed his lips to blow off the grime, took the violin under his chin and, with closed eyes, meticulously tuned each string. Delicately he replaced the instrument, and returned the cracked case to the knapsack and strapped it onto his back. While so doing he said, "My violin is perfect. If I don't survive, give it to the Philharmonic." "That's daft talk," I said, and we picked up our load and, stumbling over rocks and tripping through thickets of dry thistles, we sprinted back to the diggers on the mountainside.
There, Linder filled us in on the latest batch of rumors to come his way: the Arabs were plundering downtown Jerusalem; a coordinated Arab offensive was under way; the British were siding with the Arabs. "We're totally blind up here," he groused, and he instructed Mahler to hitch a ride into town by whatever means, and find out what was actually going on. "Come back with hard news," he commanded.
As the sun went down grimy, exhausted diggers assembled in the glow of a hurricane lamp hanging on the door of a stone ruin, hidden from enemy view, to recite the Sabbath eve prayers - Kabbalat Shabbat. It was a heavenly pause; Shabbat stillness seemed to reign over everything. But then a shell shrieked and blasted the lower reaches of the mountainside, and a headlight briefly cut through the cypress trees at the approaches to Ein Kerem, and we all rolled, crawled, and scrambled for cover. Utter silence followed, broken only by the crunch of rushing feet, panting breath, and the winded cry of Leopold Mahler running out of the blackness into the light of the hurricane lamp by the stone ruin, shouting, "I have news. I have news."
To a man we scampered back into the flickering glow where Linder grabbed him by the arms and snapped, "Well - talk. What did you find out? Are the Arabs plundering downtown Jerusalem?" Mahler wheezed not. On the contrary, the Jews had taken over the whole area. And to vividly substantiate his claim he opened his shabby coat wide and began pulling from its bulging pockets forgotten luxuries like triangles of Kraft cheese, Mars bars, and Cadbury chocolate. Then, he unstrapped his knapsack, and from its side pockets spilled out cans of peaches, jars of Ovaltine, and a bottle of Carmel wine.
We watched, eyes popping, as Mahler told how he had come by his booty: It was from the abandoned officers' mess of the British police headquarters near Zion Square. The English had evacuated the whole area that morning. Moreover, all Union Jacks throughout the country had been hauled down preparatory to midnight when British rule of Palestine would end.
"Has Ben-Gurion declared independence, yes or no?" asked Linder, beside himself with impatience. "David Ben-Gurion declared independence this afternoon in Tel Aviv. The Jewish state comes into being at midnight."
There was a dead silence. Midnight was minutes away. Even the air seemed to be holding its breath. "Oh, my God, what have we done?" cried one of the women diggers, fitfully rubbing her chin with the tips of her fingers. "What have we done? Oh, my God, what have we done?" and she burst into tears, whether in ecstasy or dismay I will never know.
Then cheers, tears, embraces. Every breast filled with exultation as we pumped hands, cuddled, kissed, in an ovation that went on and on. Nobody wanted it to stop.
"Hey, Mahler!" shouted Linder cutting through the hullabaloo, "Our state - what's its name?"
The violinist stared back blankly. "I don't know. I didn't think to ask."
"You don't know?" Mahler shook his head.
"How about Yehuda?" suggested someone.
"King David's kingdom was Yehuda - Judea." "Zion," cried another.
"It's an obvious choice." "Israel!" called a third. "What's wrong with Israel?"
"Let's drink to that," said Elisha with delight, grabbing hold of a tin mug and filling it to the brim. "A lehaim to the new state, whatever its name."
"Wait!" shouted a hassid whom everybody knew as Nussen der hazzan - a cantor by calling, and a most diligent volunteer digger from the ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim Jerusalem quarter. "It's Shabbos. Kiddush first."
Our crowd gathered around him in a hush as Nussen der hazzan clasped the mug and, in a sweet cantorial tone began to chant "Yom hashishi" - the blessing for the sanctification of the Sabbath day.
As Nussen's sacred verses floated off to a higher place of Sabbath bliss, some of us sobbed uncontrollably. Like a violin, his voice swelled, ululated, and trilled in the night, octave upon octave, his eyes closed, his cup stretched out and up. And as he concluded the final consecration - "Blessed art thou O Lord, who has hallowed the Sabbath" - he rose on tiptoe, his arm stiffened, and rocking back and forth like an ecstatic rabbi, voice trembling with excitement, he added the triumphantly exulted festival blessing to commemorate having reached this day - sheheheyanu, vekiyemanu vehegiyanu lezman hazeh."
"Amen!"
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership
(Please note: The following is a review of the Advanced Review Copy)
Rarely am I overly excited about reading someone's 703-page memoirs. Nonetheless, Yehuda Avner's The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership proved to be the exception. Once started, I couldn't put it down and in fact I will even go so far in recommending this book as required reading for every journalist covering the Middle East, as well as the so-called "experts" and pundits that very often naively swallow Arab misrepresentations without questioning its veracity and without knowing a great deal about Mid-East history.
According to Avner, his book is not a conventional biography or memoir, nor is it a work of fiction. It deals with factual events and real people, most notably Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin and Mehachem Begin, all of whom he served in one capacity or another, junior or senior, over many years, and all of whom he has tried to bring back to life as he recalls them. Apparently, The Prime Ministers is the first and only insider account of Israeli politics from the founding of the Jewish State to the near-present day. The Jerusalem Post has described the book as "the ultimate insider's account of Israeli politics."
Describing himself as a note-taker to the four Israeli prime ministers, Avner has been fortunate in possessing some very riveting transcripts and diary notes, which he has called upon in rendering his experiences. In addition, he has also accessed official correspondence, documentation, as well as his personal contact with several individuals, who have shared with him particulars concerning various secret military operations, some high level peace negotiations, and life-and-death decisions concerning the State of Israel. The result is a book filled with some fascinating intimate minutiae concerning these four Israeli prime ministers as they grapple with a multitude of complex issues- "all ratified, so to speak, by the viewpoint of the proverbial fly on the wall."
One of the book's strengths is the manner it candidly illustrates the different leadership styles of the four prime ministers, as well as their relationships to one another. At times these relations were stormy and filled with animosity. Eshkol best sumed it up when he stated: "Disputation is in our blood. We're a stiff-necked people. Shouting at each other keeps us together. Argument is our nationality."
By the way, as recounted, Eshkol, who upon taking office, asked Abba Eban to explain to him as clearly as possible what exactly was involved in being prime minister. In his previous posts as Minister of Agriculture and Finance, his duties and responsibilities were clearly defined. In another instance, Eshkol asked a doorman for his opinion as to how the country is being run, and as Avner remarks-how many other prime ministers ask doormen for their opinions and actually listen to what they have to say?
David Ben- Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, demonstratively excluded Menachem Begin from every coalition government he headed. Ben-Gurion held to the belief that Begin and his Herut party was a threat to democracy. Begin was to remark later that Ben-Gurion never understood the very essence of Ze'ev Jabotinsky's teachings which was the establishment of a liberal parliamentary democracy.
Quite revealing is Avner's descriptions of the prime ministers and their positions. For example, he describes David Rabin as a "conceptualizer" with a highly structured and analytical mind. When Rabin was to meet with Dr. Henry Kissinger, at the time President Richard Nixon's National Security Adviser, the latter wanted his ideas on how to implement the famous post- Six-Day War Security Council Resolution 242 and in particular the clause: "Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict, and the establishment of "secure and recognized boundaries." Rabin's reply, was as follows: "1) The Jewish people have an inalienable historic right to the whole of the biblical homeland. 2) Since our objective is a Jewish and democratic state and not a bi-national state, the boundaries we seek are those which will give Israel a maximum area of the biblical homeland with a maximum number of Jews whom we can maximally defend. Israel in peace, aspires to be a state that is Jewish by demography, society, and values, not just borders." Rabin believed that peace can only be achieved through a step-by-step process and is dependent on disengagement of the parties that will lead to diffusion of the conflict, leading to trust and
finally to negotiation between the parties.
On a lighter note, Avner even throws in interesting tidbits concerning some of America's renowned personalities as Henry Kissinger. Not too many know that Kissinger first name is actually Heinz, who was quite shy as a youngster and a bit withdrawn. One of his classmates recounts the story that one of his high school teachers tried to rid him of his Bavarian accent, telling him: " Henry you have a chronic English-language speech disability. You must try harder to Americanize it." This same friend, who became a psychiatrist, believed that Kissinger was extremely complicated and believed he needed psychiatric help. He goes onto say that there were basic tensions in the man's psyche which had influenced the way he perceived the world and, consequently how he arrived at decisions.
It should be pointed out that Avner devotes much more ink to Menachem Begin than the other prime ministers. I must say, however, that what is revealed depicts this figure in a different light than is often perceived. After reading Avner's account, I would regard that of all the Israeli prime ministers, Begin was probably the most brilliant, and he probably also has the distinction of being the most controversial.
Yehuda Avner was born in 1928 in Manchester, England and first came to Palestine in 1947 before the creation of the State of Israel. In 1948 he fought the siege of Jerusalem during the Arab-Israeli War, and in 1949 he was one of the founders of Kibbutz Lavi. He was Consul in New York City, and Counselor at the Washington D.C. Embassy. In 1983, he was appointed Ambassador to the UK and Non-resident Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland. He returned to Israel in 1988, before serving as Ambassador to Australia between 1992 and 1995. Between overseas postings, Avner served as Speechwriter and Secretary to Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir, and adviser to Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, and Shimon Peres. In 1984, Avner authored The Young Inheritors — a Portrait of Israel's Children. In 1995 the Yehuda Avner Chair in Religion and Politics was established at Bar-Ilan University and he is a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a member of the Ambassadorial Appointments Committee.
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