“Jabotinsky… The Man and His Vision” is the best short work on the Zionist leader Vladimir “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky I’ve ever read. A monograph of 36 pages, it provides a perfect balance of essential details with brush strokes broad enough to capture the life of this seminal figure.
It was written by William Mehlman, who passed away on April 27 at the age of 91. His death was sudden. He was still lucid, writing up until the end. I always enjoyed my conversations with Bill, whose manner was two parts thoughtful intellectual and one part enthusiasm.
“He was passionate about his views. What he believed in he believed in very strongly,” his son Ira said.
Prominent for Ira, in remembering his father, was his sense of purpose. “He had a sense of purpose every day. He had it even after he retired from working,” Ira said.
That purpose may have come from the sense that time is fleeting, something Bill may have come to understand when he lost his own father, who was only 52 when he died. “He never said that, but I suspect it in retrospect, it does change your outlook. It has changed mine,” Ira said.
For Bill, the purpose that fueled him was defending Israel and the Jewish people. He was going to do whatever he could to make sure Jews would never again find themselves in a position of powerlessness. This worldview was likely the result of living through two seminal events during his formative years – the Holocaust and the foundation of Israel.
