https://www.jns.org/opinion/soldiering-on-for-the-jews-and-israel/
A new biography reveals the lifelong battles of Australian-Israeli warrior Isi Leibler.
(February 9, 2021 / JNS) Reading a biography about a friend is a mixed experience. On the one hand, the protagonist is familiar. On the other, he’s a complete stranger, whose story unfolds like that of a fictional character being introduced in a novel.
This is the sense of duality that I had while curled up with Lone Voice: The Wars of Isi Leibler, a tome by renowned Australian-Jewish historian Suzanne D. Rutland.
Before meeting Leibler in person 20 years ago, I knew about the human-rights activist from Australia and his long-standing fight on behalf of Soviet Jewry, his tireless battle against global anti-Semitism and his connection to the World Jewish Congress—an organization from which he subsequently resigned as vice president and whose financial corruption he would launch a campaign to expose.
I was also aware that he possessed one of the world’s largest private libraries of Jewish books, certainly the most extensive in Israel. Visions of a dimly lit room covered floor-to-ceiling in volumes of bibles bound in leather and gold, alongside works of the sages and interpretations of the Talmud, came to mind.
Judging by his aptly named “Candidly Speaking” columns in The Jerusalem Post—all brutally honest and hard-hitting—I imagined the man himself to be a daunting, scholarly figure around whom I would do well to watch my intellectual step.
