Israel: The Man Without Enemies

To the ceremonial blare of a ram’s horn, Israel’s third President was sworn into office last week. He was Schneor Zalman Shazar, 73, a balding, bespectacled scholar of Jewish history. The country’s first Minister of Education, he was elected by the Knesset to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Izhak Ben-Zvi last month.

Russian-born Shazar emigrated to Palestine via Central Europe during the ’20s,*was hand-picked for the job by an old political crony, Premier David Ben-Guri-on. Shazar has another important qualification. As Ben-Gurion puts it, he is “a man without enemies.”

Normally softspoken, Shazar is an impassioned, skillful orator when he gets onto a speaker’s platform. During last month’s commemoration of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Shazar brought the audience to tears simply by repeating the word “Warsaw” in hushed tones before beginning his address; on another occasion he was so carried away by his own oratory that he fell off the stage and had to be taken to the hospital for a badly sprained leg. Shazar is also notoriously absentminded. Years ago in Poland, the story goes, he boarded a train only to find that he had lost his rail ticket. Assured by the conductor that he could buy another, Shazar replied: “I know, but if I don’t find the ticket I won’t know where I’m going.”

*Shazar’s original surname was Rubashov, but like many veteran Zionists, he Hebraized his name. David Green became David Ben-Gurion; Isaac Shimshelevitz became Izhak Ben-Zvi. Schneor Zalman Rubashov became Shazar by combining the initials of his first, middle and last names. An exception to the common practice: Israel’s first President, who remained Chaim Weizmann.