A model judicial biography.

• Author: Gunther, Gerald
• Position: 1999 Survey of Books Related to the Law

JUDGMENT IN JERUSALEM: CHIEF JUSTICE SIMON AGRANAT AND THE ZIONIST CENTURY. By Pnina Lahav. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1997. Pp. xvii, 314. $29.95.

I have long been a fan of the Michigan Law Review's annual book review issue. I was therefore particularly delighted to read the Introduction to last year's issue, the twentieth anniversary of this ingenious and, I think, unique law review format. Michigan professor Carl Schneider wrote that opening piece.(1) Schneider brought excellent credentials to the writing of his witty and thoughtful essay: he was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review twenty years ago, and thus present at the creation of the book review issue. His thoughtful Introduction states, accurately I believe, that the book review issue "is the best read issue of any law review in the country."(2) He recalls the initial goals of the format and offers persuasive suggestions for future ones. He points out that one of the purposes of the book review issue is to "serve the readers," stating: "[B]ecause there is now so much published, no one can read everything; and because much of it is not good, no one would want to. Book reviews, then, help their readers decide which books to buy, which to read, and which to study."(3) I agree with his observation, as I especially do with his comment that "often a serious book goes unreviewed for several years because it was overlooked in the flood" of new books.(4) The inattention to Pnina Lahav's(5) biography of Simon Agranat in this country vividly illustrates Schneider's remark about books that have been overlooked.

The silence of American newspapers and periodicals has been stunning. The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, other major newspapers and magazines of general circulation -- none have reviewed the book.(6) Attention to the book in American publications consists only of a favorable review by Sanford Levinson in the History Book Club Review(7) and an extensive, enthusiastic evaluation by Laura Kalman, a knowledgeable and thoughtful biographer herself,(8) in Law and Social Inquiry, the Journal of the American Bar Foundation.(9) Kalman, who had written a blurb for Judgment in Jerusalem -- a blurb beginning "[t]his is the best biography I have ever read" -- superbly surveys the pitfalls that confront a biographer and evaluates Lahav's achievement far more thoroughly than I can here. She ends her forty-five-page essay with the statement: "I wish my blurb had been more glowing."(10)

I fully share Kalman's enthusiasm. I, too, am convinced that Pnina Lahav has written a truly superb book. Her biography of Simon Agranat tells an enormously gripping story of one human being's life and, at least as important (but rare), depicts her subject with continuous attention to the context of the rich history that affected him and that he affected. As a result, this is not only a portrait of an intriguing individual but also a sophisticated, nuanced depiction of the strains and divisions that have marked the history of Zionism, of Israel, and of Israeli law. Moreover, the book is a great read.

I suspect that most readers of this book review issue have never heard of Simon Agranat and are neither Zionists nor especially interested in the history of Israel. This review is an effort to persuade you not to let these considerations stand as obstacles to your decision to read this book. I speak from personal experience; I, too, had not heard of Agranat and was not steeped in Israeli history. My major field is American constitutional law, not comparative constitutional law. I am a Jew, a refugee from Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. The German Jewish culture of my youth left me no legacy that would turn me into a devoted Zionist. My acquaintance with Israel is less than a decade old -- only two visits, one to attend a conference,(11) the other to give a lecture(12) -- after years of travel to many other foreign countries. Yet I was overwhelmed by Lahav's riveting book. My enthusiasm stems mainly from the fact that I am an aficionado of biographies, including but not limited to judicial biographies. In view of my very limited familiarity with Agranat and with Israel, I was stunned by my immediate absorption in Lahav's book.

This review, then, is an effort to bring to the attention of the readers of this year's book review issue a truly worthy and captivating book that richly illuminates many issues of considerable interest to American readers. This effort to shine a spotlight on an egregiously neglected book was spurred by a phone call from an editor on the Michigan Law Review asking me to review any or all of the biographies of American judges published recently. I replied that I was familiar with all the biographies, for I had read them in the course of serving as chair of the Supreme Court Historical Society's Committee on the Griswold Prize, an award for the best book relating to the Supreme Court.(13) Reluctant to review books that I had already discussed at length with my committee colleagues, I suggested to the editor that I instead review the Agranat biography that I had just begun to read, for I was finding it to be the best I had encountered in a very long time. The editor, understandably, had never heard of Agranat or indeed the author; but, perhaps inspired by Carl Schneider's introductory essay last year, agreed to discuss it with his co-editors, who ultimately approved my suggestion.

I am writing this review because I remain convinced, after two readings, that Judgment in Jerusalem is indeed a remarkable achievement. My fervor is not diminished by another emotion that surfaced intermittently as I immersed myself in it. I had worked for many years on a biography of Learned Hand.(14) in which I sought to interweave my subject's personal makeup, historical context, and public work, and to present my story in as readable a manner as I could. I am proud of my book, but I must acknowledge that Lahav's book, written with dazzling fluency and grace, nuance and thoughtfulness, is to me the model biography. And to fuel my envy some more, her book on Agranat is less than half the length of mine on Hand! This envy has also driven my interest in writing this essay: my Hand biography attracted a great deal of attention in the American media; I was truly disturbed that Lahav's book has been so widely ignored here and is hence unknown to most legal academics, to lawyers and students, and to fellow fans of biographies.(15)

Why then do I find this book so outstanding? In my view, superb biographies are often the product of special connections between biographer and subject. Lahav and Agranat are an especially promising match. Her Prologue notes the irony "in the fact that Agranat and I have traded places. Born in America to Russian immigrant parents, he made his home in Israel. I was born in Tel Aviv to parents from Iran and Egypt and made my home in the United States" (p. xvii). Lahav has special reason to understand what it...