Description: "A magisterial biography of Israel's first president. Beginning with his childhood in Belorussia and concluding with his tenure as president, Reinharz and Golani describe how a Russian Jew, who immigrated to the United Kingdom in the early twentieth century, was able to advance the goals of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist Organization. "--
Brief description: Motti Golani is Ruhama Rosenberg Professor for Jewish History and heads the Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel at Tel Aviv University. He has authored and coauthored over a dozen books, including Palestine between Politics and Terror, 1945-1947 and Two Sides of the Coin: Independence and Nakba 1948; Two Narratives of the 1948 War and its Outcome.
Review Quotes: "This book is by no means concerned only with politics, Zionism, or Jewish history. It is a magnificent, epic study of world affairs, and of how much one man could do and also why, in the end, he felt so isolated."-- "New York Sun"