The Audacity To Live

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. For the story of the father's life, is the story of the State of Israel, of it's earliest strides, of its manifold dangers, of its ambivalent feelings towards Europe which had become the huge graveyard of the Jewish people. This is also the story of how individuals can influence the advance of history, a story which proves that creativity has a strength no less than that power which equals the use of force. The book is spiced with typical tales wherein youthful courage and imagination overcome the harsh and well-established bureaucratic systems. This is a story about history, and no less is it a story about making history. The autobiographical chapters included in the book are by Asher Ben Natan, and this family name was chosen by Arthur to commemorate his father, Natan - Nachum, who had the foresight to acquire some land in Palestine as far back as 1935 and thus ensure the future of his family.On this land we are duty bound to ensure a life of dignity for all. I believe that readers of this book will acquire a lesson of world history, particularly of Europe, of the contribution of one individual to the State and above all, of the spirit of man and our prospect to fashion more righteous and enhanced destiny. From the foreward in the book, by Shimon Peres