NOTE: I was not paid to review this book. It is an unbiased and objective review. If you have a book with Jewish or Israel related content and would like me to write a review, contact me for details of where to send me a review copy of the book.
Book Review: Lone Voice - The Wars of Isi Liebler, by Suzanne D Rutland
I did not know what I was getting into when I picked up this book for the first time. It was totally unexpected and eye opening for me.
Lone Voice - The Wars of Isi Liebler is a biography of a global Jewish leader who fought his entire adult life for the Jewish people around the world. Considering his influence, I was surprised to not really have known anything of him and hardly heard of him. I have seen and read [some of] his op-eds over the years, but I did not really know who he was or his level of involvement. I suspect that it is partly having grown up in the USA, everything Jewish and global was centered in the USA (and Israel). Sure, people elsewhere were involved, but it was really the American influence that made the difference, that led the way.This book is massive, and while I could have done with fewer details of each of his major battles, and so was Liebler's influence and involvement.
Liebler was born in 1934 to an influential family and after the family moved from Antwerp to Melbourne Australia in 1939, his father died at a young age leaving him and his brothers as orphans raised by their strong mother. When Isi returned from abroad learning the diamond trade to take over the family business, despite his young age he really became the head of the family. His involvement in Jewish leadership, which had begun in youth movements as a child, also increased. Liebler turned himself into a global Jewish leader, taking up projects and issues that he felt were important for the Jewish people.
The most striking of his involvement was that regarding Soviet Jewry. Liebler dedicated decades to fighting for the release of Soviet Jewry from the chains of the Soviet Union, traveling to Soviet Russia many times in addition to using his influence with Prime Ministers, along with activists and organizations, around the world at risk to himself after he got on the bad side of the Soviets for his involvement. Liebler fought and fought and fought on their behalf and never gave up, no matter how grim the situation looked. As he himself said, Australia punched above its weight on this issue. Besides for Lieblers involvement, there is so much in the book about the battel for Soviet Jewry's freedom that I learned a lot about how it happened that i previously did not know.
How could someone from such a small Jewish community so far away and disconnected (don't forget, there was no Internet back in the 60s, 70s and 80s and air travel then was not what it is today either) have so much influence? I don't know, but Isi Liebler was a powerhouse.
The one thing missing from the book that i would have liked to learn is what happened with his family business. It sounded like it grew under his stewardship, but after he took it over, the book no longer talks about it - it moves on to a business in the travel industry which he invested in and grew to global proportions. His major wealth seems to have really come from the travel industry, and the diamond business was not discussed any more after he got involved with travel. I was curious if he put that to rest when he moved on or if he took on the additional businesses and investments on top of running the family business. This is not an important issue, but I was curious about it.
In Lone Voice, Isi Liebler was involved in the battle for Soviet Jewry, a more personal battle with Qantas regarding his travel business, Israel, corruption in the World Jewish Congress, peace in Israel, world Jewry and Zionism, the Claims Conference for Holocaust survivors, Moscow Olympics, is family and more. And he did this all beginning as an orphan from a young age. Isi Liebler was a warrior, especially for Judaism and Jewish issues - unwavering and unremitting no matter how strong the forces facing him were. he fought for what he felt was right and necessary.
Lone Voice is a great book to learn about Isi Liebler, a global Jewish leader, but it is also a great book to learn details about the history of so many Jewish issues, and of course to learn about Jewish leadership.
Isi Liebler died just a couple of weeks ago, and considering his lifetime of accomplishments, the Jewish world is better off for his involvement.
- buy Lone Voice - The Wars of Isi Liebler on Amazon.com
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