The Audacity To Live

The Audacity To Live is the story of Asher Ben Natan's participation in the struggle for the Jewish People’s survival and in the rebirth of the State of Israel.Immediately after World War II, Ben Natan was the commander of the Brichah in Austria, the clandestine organization responsible for transferring Jews who had survived the Holocaust, from Eastern to Western Europe, and then to Israel. Ben Natan describes this work as “the most important period in my life.”As the first Israeli Ambassador to Germany, Ben Natan’s skill in maneuvering his relationship with the country that thrust the Holocaust upon the Jewish world, defined how Israel, as a new country, would deal with their former enemy, and exemplifies Ben Natan’s influential qualities. He went on to become Israel’s ambassador to France during a most critical period.Ben Natan includes in this account, historic events in his ambassadorial life, many of them previously unpublished in English. It establishes him as one of the most forthright and outspoken representatives in the Jewish world of yesterday and today.The Audacity To Live is an essential volume for anyone studying Israel’s post-Holocaust and early international relationships.Anyone who has met Asher Ben Natan, cannot help but be impressed by his height and his great resemblance to one of the well-known cinema celebrities.But anyone who knows him, cannot help but be impressed by his human stature.He is a solid character, he is undaunted and he is prepared to abandon the routine. It is therefore no wonder that he was assigned a range of extraordinary duties, which he fulfilled with a latent and fertile ability.Asher Ben Natan headed a most unique organization - Brichah - "The Escape Movement of Holocaust Survivors" and he was also the Director-General of the Ministry of Defense.He is the only one I know, who was capable of being both our ambassador to Germany (and to remind the Germans of their enormous debt to the Jewish people) and also our ambassador to France (to foster unpredicted friendly relations with this country).He was chief of the Foreign Ministry's Secret Service and also Chairman of the Ben Gurion Foundation. To all these functions he harnessed his remarkable personality, his penetrating logic and his proud confidence.He saw in all these positions, his struggle for the Jewish people's right to exist - regardless that others thought of this struggle as being audacity - the audacity to live. His striking appearance, his European customs and his Israeli persona helped him to assume with reverence the uniform of a non-existent army, to represent an imaginary newspaper, to cross a forbidding frontier and persuade many of the justice of his path.This is the life story of a man who rescued many Jews, who procured arms for a besieged country, who raised a genuine voice to create a dialogue with the Germans, who developed productive relations with France.He was a "Ben Gurionist" and Ben Gurion appreciated his value. And just as throughout his career, as in his relationship with Ben Gurion, there was not one iota of opportunism, both when Ben Gurion was at the pinnacle and also when Ben Gurion censured it.Arthur is not one to fly into a rage, but he is also one who does not compromise his principles. Faithful to his first love - Erika - he and she, together endured the grief which followed the loss of their beloved son, himself an outstanding person, in the Yom Kippur War.The book is dedicated to their son, Amnon, towards whom he feels the need to report about his father's deeds. This record is a kind of second "Kaddish" - a mourner's prayer, by a father for his son, a most poignant Kaddish.