Product Description

A dandy, a best-selling novelist, and a man of political and sexual intrigue, Benjamin Disraeli was one of the most captivating figures of the nineteenth century. His flirtation with proto-Zionism, his ideas about power and empire, and his fantasies about the Middle East remain prophetically relevant today. How a man who was born a Jew--and who remained in the eyes of his countrymen a member of a despised minority--managed to become prime minister of England seems even today nothing short of miraculous.

In this compelling biography, renowned poet and critic Adam Kirsch looks at Disraeli as a novelist as well as a statesman, recognizing that the outsider Jew who became one of the world's most powerful men was his own greatest character. Though baptized by his father at the age of twelve, Disraeli was seen--and saw himself--as a Jew. But her created an idea of Jewishness to rival the British notion of aristocracy.

Disraeli was a figure of fascinating contradictions: an archconservative who benefited from England's liberal attitudes, a baptized Christian who saw Jewishness as a matter of racial superiority, a perennial outsider who dreamed of glory for England, which, in the words of one contemporary, became for Disraeli "the Israel of his imagination."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #609633 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-02
• Released on: 2008-09-02
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Although he was a practicing Christian, baptized into the Church of England at age 12, British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's (1804–1881) Jewishness was a central fact about him. Drawing on previous biographies, histories of English Jewry and Disraeli's autobiographical novels and other writings, poet and New York Sun book critic Kirsch (Invasions) interprets Disraeli's life as emblematic of both the possibilities of emancipation for European Jewry, and its subtle impossibilities. Kirsch sheds welcome light on Disraeli's father's ambivalence toward Judaism and his decision to baptize his children; the crude Jew-baiting Disraeli encountered at school and, later, in politics; his imagining Palestine as the site of Jewish national sovereignty; his ascent in the Conservative party, which, Kirsch says, was paradoxically a testament to English liberalism; and the half-century rivalry between Disraeli and Gladstone that defined Victorian politics. Two of Disraeli's greatest political achievements, recounted here, are the passage of a bill that broadly expanded voting rights and the purchase, with a loan from his Rothschild friends, of a share in the Suez Canal Company for the British government. This is a lively, inquiring biography that reveals the prideful, exceptional man behind the famous politician. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
In his long public career, including two terms as prime minister, Disraeli encouraged the vast expansion and consolidation of the British Empire and presided over monumental changes in British political and social affairs. Yet this quirky, narrow-based, but intriguing biography pays scant attention to those landmark shifts. Instead, Kirsch, a poet and literary critic, has focused on Disraeli’s Jewish identity and the role it played in both his private and public life. Technically, Disraeli was not Jewish. His father, an assimilated writer, had his son baptized at the age of 12. Disraeli was a practicing Anglican who often showed disdain for some “barbaric” Jewish religious practices, and his direct contacts with Britain’s relatively small Jewish community were minimal. Still, as Kirsch convincingly asserts, Disraeli clung tight to his Jewish identity. He took immense pride in the cultural heritage of Judaism, and he used that pride as a weapon to fend off bigots, within and without Parliament, who attacked him as a “foreigner.” Those seeking a comprehensive account of Disraeli’s career must look elsewhere. --Jay Freeman

Review
"Adam Kirsch has produced a charming and absorbing apercu into one of the most fascinating statesmen of modern history. A delightful read.:
--Howard M. Sachar, author of A History of Israel

"Kirsch has written an important and compelling book about Benjamin Disraeli, the first Jewish prime minister of England, who famously replied, 'Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.' This engaging biography gives nuance and meaning to one of the most enigmatic men of the Victorian era."
--Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

Biography of a very complex man
In 1852 Benjamin Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer, posed for a portrait created by Sir Francis Grant. The portrait depicts Disraeli as a young man with full, sensual lips, intelligent black eyes, and thick, dark hair. A detail from the portrait, which illustrates the cover of the new biography, Benjamin Disraeli, by Adam Kirsch, contrasts sharply with a photograph of Disraeli that is also included in the book.

That photograph represents the elder statesman in 1875, a portly gentleman with a receding hairline, his eyes tired yet wise; the corners of his mouth turned slightly upward in a weary smile. The contrasts suggested by these images deftly convey the themes of Kirsch's biography.

Kirsch reveals the complex, contradictory nature of a man born a Jew and raised in the Christian faith, a man who celebrated his Jewish heritage yet refused to join a campaign in 1840 to save Jews in Damascus from government sponsored torture. Liberal in his political outlook, Disraeli was both distrusted and resented by the conservatives in the House of Commons, but indispensable to their cause.

More than fifty biographies have been written about Benjamin Disraeli. Unlike his predecessors, Kirsch focuses his attention, not so much on Disraeli's political career, but on the psychological effects of his Jewish heritage. Kirsch examines how Disraeli and his contemporaries depicted Jews and Judaism in literature, and considers how such representations influenced social behavior and thought during the time of Disraeli's rise to power. Throughout the book, Kirsch provides fascinating details from Jewish history.

Benjamin Disraeli is the tenth book in the Schocken Books/Nextbook "Jewish Encounters" series. An exceptional portrait of an intriguing figure, this book will particularly appeal to those readers interested in studying the history of Jewish thought.

Armchair Interviews says: Most interesting biography.

A Jewish Chritian
I've always wondered how this Christian Prime Minister (for though he was born Jewish, his father had him baptized at age age 12) is viewd by so many as Jewish. This books answers that question convincingly, for Disraeli never tried to pass; he was proud, even almost scornful of those not priveledged to be an Israelite. Never was an Anglican in church more proud to be an Jew. That last sentence is odd, but after reading this smooth, elegant and concise story, you will understand.

Disraeli yes, biography no!
Disraeli by Kirsch is not a biography. It is a judeo-centric analysis of his political life.Every action is explained as a result of his Jewishness. It is a well-written dissertation, not an enlightening biography. Although it is short it is incredibly repetitive. There is no discussion of his life in the context of the history of the time. This should be your 4th or 5th book on Disraeli not your first. This is the third book I've read in the Jewish Encounters series (Maimonides by Nuland and Wicked Son by Mamet are the others). No more. They have all been lousy.