Overview
Beginning with the brutal murder of her husband before her eyes, Leah Rabin recounts in clear-sighted detail the events of her forty-eight years with Rabin, from their dramatic courtship during service in the Palmach, the elite strike force of the underground Jewish army, to their marriage during the 1948 War of Independence; from his ascent as a brilliant military tactician and his role as chief of staff of Israel's armed forces during the breathtaking victories of the 1967 Six Day War, to his entry into political life, first as Israeli ambassador to the United States, then as cabinet minister to Golda Meir after the Yom Kippur War, and later as Israel's sixth and then youngest prime minister in 1974.A major international literary and historic event: the deeply personal remembrances of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by his widow--a singular, intimate portrait of the soldier turned statesman who lived at the center of Israeli history and helped to lead his nation over its five decade existence from war to peace. 16 pp. of photos. 320 pp. National media publicity. 150,000 print. (Biography)
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
A year and a half ago, former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist opposed to the Mideast peace process. Six months later, his life was commemorated by his granddaughter, Noa Rabin, in In the Name of Sorrow and Hope. Now, Rabin's widow reflects on her husband's life, his legacy and their 48 years together in this engrossing biography. She recalls his career as a military leader and statesman, providing details of the 1967 Six-Day War that made Rabin a military hero, and his tenure as Israeli ambassador to the U.S. as well as his defeats and victories within Israel's Labor party. The Rabins, who shared a lifelong commitment to Israel's defense, met in 1943, when she was a 15-year-old school girl and he was a 21-year-old soldier in the elite military unit, the Palmach. Although Mrs. Rabin touches only briefly on her children or on family events, and provides little insight into her husband's private thoughts, she fully details his long career, punctuating the account with her sharply remembered opinions and anecdotes. Of great interest is her perspective on the power struggle between Rabin and Shimon Peres (whom Mrs. Rabin clearly dislikes) and her candid opinions on world leaders she has met. In her last chapter, which uses diary entries and meditations on current events to describe her life and that of her country since Yitzhak Rabin's death, Leah Rabin promises that she will continue to speak out: "I feel an acute responsibility to carry his message forward.... I am here to remind you of him." Photos not seen by PW. BOMC alternate. (Apr.)Library Journal
Following up her granddaughter, Noa, whose In the Name of Sorrow and Hope (Knopf, 1996) recalled slain Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, Leah eulogizes her statesman husband. Additionally, she offers her take on Israel's current state of affairs.Kirkus Reviews
A straightforward (and somewhat superficial) account of the life and times of Israel's late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by his widow.Rabin paints an adulatory, one-sided portrait of her husband, chronicling his life as a farmer, general, and statesman, and his many successes. His failures are almost always attributed to others. The author unfairly targets Bar-Ilan University, where Yigal Amir was a student, as the main force behind Amir's assassination of her husband. Although the university is a center of nonideological Orthodoxy, Rabin contends that "a core of extremist rabbis" there have led their students to believe that "the `holy land' of Judea and Samaria is more holy than the life of the prime minister who was willing to compromise on this land for peace." She also blames the left for her husband's death, for remaining silent when right-wing protesters camped outside the Rabin home, taunting the couple and comparing them to Nicolae and Elena Ceauescu of Romania. And it was the left's complacency, contends Rabin, that gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his recent victory. "Why had they not used me more extensively in their campaign?" she wonders. She glosses over many of the controversies that surrounded the Rabins. She accused President Ezer Weizman of spreading rumors that her husband had a nervous breakdown in the exhausting days preceding the Six-Day War. The illegal bank account she held in America is explained as an "oversight, an unintentional violation." And the lifelong rivalry between Rabin and Shimon Peres seems to dissipate in their joint pursuit of the Oslo agreement. The author clearly delights in her contacts with celebrities, and this book takes on a gossipy tone when she alludes to the likes of Henry Kissinger, Betty Ford, Barbara Bush, and Suah Arafat.
Always interesting, but this is more of a eulogy than a memoir.