
Menachem Begin
The Battle for Israel's Soul
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Narrated by:
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Walter Dixon
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By:
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Daniel Gordis
About this listen
Reviled as a fascist by his great rival Ben-Gurion, venerated by Israel’s underclass, the first Israeli to win the Nobel Peace Prize, a proud Jew but not a conventionally religious one, Menachem Begin was both complex and controversial. Born in Poland in 1913, Begin was a youthful admirer of the Revisionist Zionist Ze’ev Jabotinsky and soon became a leader within Jabotinsky’s Betar movement. A powerful orator and mesmerizing public figure, Begin was imprisoned by the Soviets in 1940, joined the Free Polish Army in 1942, and arrived in Palestine as a Polish soldier shortly thereafter. Joining the underground paramilitary Irgun in 1943, he achieved instant notoriety for the organization’s bombings of British military installations and other violent acts.
Intentionally left out of the new Israeli government, Begin’s right-leaning Herut political party became a fixture of the opposition to the Labor-dominated governments of Ben-Gurion and his successors, until the surprising parliamentary victory of his political coalition in 1977 made him prime minister. Welcoming Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to Israel and cosigning a peace treaty with him on the White House lawn in 1979, Begin accomplished what his predecessors could not. His outreach to Ethiopian Jews and Vietnamese "boat people" was universally admired, and his decision to bomb Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 is now regarded as an act of courageous foresight. But the disastrous invasion of Lebanon to end the PLO’s shelling of Israel’s northern cities, combined with his declining health and the death of his wife, led Begin to resign in 1983. He spent the next nine years in virtual seclusion, until his death in 1992. Begin was buried not alongside Israel’s prime ministers, but alongside the Irgun comrades who died in the struggle to create the Jewish national home to which he had devoted his life.
Daniel Gordis’ perceptive biography gives us new insight into a remarkable political figure whose influence continues to be felt both within Israel and throughout the world.
©2014 Daniel Gordis (P)2014 Gildan Media LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Shimon Peres was in his early 20s when he first met David Ben-Gurion. Although the state that Ben-Gurion would lead through war and peace had not yet declared its precarious independence, the "Old Man", as he was called even then, was already a mythic figure. Peres, who came of age in the cabinets of Ben-Gurion, is uniquely placed to evoke this figure of stirring contradictions - a prophetic visionary and a canny pragmatist who early grasped the necessity of compromise for national survival.
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Great Perfomance, Less than Stellar Story
- By Alexander on 01-02-12
By: Shimon Peres, and others
What listeners say about Menachem Begin
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- MelvynAdam
- 06-13-16
Narrator mispronounces almost every Hebrew word
Where does Menachem Begin rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
The book's great. Daniel Gordis' writing is, as ever, captivating and illuminating. But I'm returning this audiobook and moving to an eBook to read the rest of the book. I simply can't take any more of the narrator.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
Sadly he's unfamiliar with the Hebrew names and words that pepper the book.
The early chapters make frequent references to Menachem Begin's father Ze'ev. The narrator calls him "zay ev" (pronounced as if the first half of the name rhymes with the greeting "Hi").
That was grating enough but the final straw was when, in chapter 4 (at around the 11min mark), he refers to the "Hativka". It should be the "Hatikva". At that point I realised I was more focused on waiting for the next foul-up by the narrator than by the content of the book.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Rebbe Don Justino
- 04-11-17
Good content, meh performance
I learned lots of interesting details about a story I already thought I knew well.
The reader takes it much too fast (but not so fast that slowing it down is much help. Worse, he has taken no trouble to learn Hebrew pronunciation. His constant mistakes are annoying and make this otherwise enjoyable book a harder listen.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jacob
- 07-02-18
An inspiring and surprising story
I learnt alot about Begin and his mentor Jabatinsky. A surprising and well formulated biography,
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- Mrc
- 07-22-16
Amazing!
You can't understand israel if you don't understand Begin. This is a must read for every Jew.
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- Curtis Moss
- 04-30-25
Awesome book!
It was a really good history of Begin’s life. I love learning about the Jewish underground before independence. The author covered the topic thoroughly and with a lot of respect.
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- Steve Yastrow
- 06-18-14
A great book
I was never a Begin fan, but this book shows you what an interesting, insightful, passionate character Begin was. I recommend this book. If you want to learn more about Begin, also check out Yehuda Avner's "The Primer Ministers."
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3 people found this helpful
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- hslanda
- 11-29-16
Inspiring story
The story is truly inspiring especially for Jews. It is a shame that the chosen reader is limited in his ability to properly pronounce Hebrew or Yiddish
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3 people found this helpful
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- Jacob Engelstein
- 10-03-14
Great story lousy oration
What made the experience of listening to Menachem Begin the most enjoyable?
The underlying story ofMenachem Begin's comittment to Israel and the Jewish People
How could the performance have been better?
The orator could have taken the time to better prepare himself to correctly pronounce a variety of mispronounced words in Hebrew and Yiddish, it was distracting listening to him slaughter these words.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Uri Lahav-Goldshmid
- 07-25-18
Great book.
Would have much rathered that the narrator would pronounce the Hebrew and Yiddish words properly, but Uther than that- excellent book. very detailed and eye opening. greatly recommended.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Angel M.
- 04-10-21
A thorough and interesting biography
Excellent biography about the life, experiences and motivations of Menachem Begin! I’ve read other histories and biographies about Begin, so much of the timeline was known.
However, the human side of Begin was illuminating to me. Media largely remembers his stern look and immovable political positions. I understand him better now as a person, with both honorable and complicated intentions. I respect his sense of history, and his desire to protect his people, even after experiencing torture, loss and ongoing hardship. It is clear to see how this perspective was imbued in his political and military approach.
*very disappointing narration- if I hadn’t liked the writing so much, I would have given up in the first hour.
One doesn’t have to speak Hebrew to pronounce basic words correctly. I consider this a failure of production-was there no sound editor?
I can only compare it to someone pronouncing the US Presidents as “Roo-nahld Ree-goon” or “Jih-may Court-huhr”
So bad.
! Daniel Gordis’ writing excellent. Story excellent. !
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