Abraham

Mel Foster narrates Dershowitz's study of legal interactions, negotiations, and even anti-Semitism during biblical times. The first half of the audiobook focuses on biblical stories and interpretations that echo Talmudic arguments. The second half examines Jews and legal cases over the past 200 years. Foster's narration is unemotional. But his Hebrew and Yiddish accents are Americanized and jarringly pronounced. And many of the jokes fall flat from his poor accent, phrasing, and intonation. The author's first-person reminiscences of cases he defended across the globe sound dry and long-winded in Foster's narration. Nonetheless, Dershowitz's legal perspective on stories about Abraham and Moses and descriptions of "Jews on trial" are interesting overall. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

October 19, 2015
In this fresh commentary, Dershowitz compares the words and actions of the biblical Abraham to the various historical archetypes of the Jewish lawyer. He asserts that Abraham may be seen as the "first Jewish lawyer," exercising the legal roles of iconoclast, advocate, collaborator, and negotiator. For example, scholars and Bible students have debated how best to understand the fact that while Abraham questioned the justice of God's intent to destroy the Sodomites, he failed to challenge God's command to sacrifice Isaac. In the first case, notes Dershowitz, Abraham acted as a legal advocate, zealous to defend his unrelated and almost certainly guilty client; in the second, when he fails to argue on behalf of his own son, he bears a disturbing resemblance to certain Jewish lawyers complicit, by their silence, in immoral acts against Jews by those in power. At once frank and wry, Dershowitz demonstrates how the Jewish value of the rule of law, and the actions of Jewish lawyers themselves, have contributed to the pursuit of justice. Clear and accessible, with endnotes to please scholars, this book will likely appeal to both Jews and non-Jews.