Newspaper Article

BEGIN'S BEGINNINGS UNDERSTANDING THE POLITICIAN WHO WAS BOTH A TERRORIST AND A PEACEMAKER

Reviewed by Milton Viorst, Author of "Sands of Sorrow: Israel's Journey from Independence"

1987

Overview

The Life and Times of Menachem Begin By Amos Perlmutter Doubleday, 444 pages, $21.95 To Win or To Die: A Personal Portrait of Menachem Begin By Ned Temko Morrow, 460 pages, $18.95 Though both are solid and essentially fair, the two books, like their authors, are quite different in character. Amos Perlmutter is an Israeli-born academic, currently teaching at American University in Washington. Ned Temko is an American journalist who long served as the Christian Science Monitor's correspondent in the Middle East. As one might except, Perlmutter's book relies more heavily on documentation, Temko's on interviews. Perlmutter's is more critical, Temko's more graphic. If I had to choose between them, I would say that Perlmutter's is the better. The test is not the period since 1977, with its plentiful material on Begin's exercise of power, but the formative years of Begin's life in Poland, Russia and British Palestine. Perlmutter's languages give him an advantage, as does his knowledge of the early conflicts within Zionism and his instinctive understanding of the Jewish-Israeli character. Perlmutter does not have all the answers to the mysteries of Begin's past, but he generally knows the right questions to ask.

• Publisher: Tribune Publishing Company, LLC