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And None Shall Make Them Afraid: Eight Stories of the Modern State of Israel
This is the story of how Zionism, supported by Americanism, created a modern miracle—told through the little-known stories of eight individuals who collectively changed history.
And None Shall Make Them Afraid presents eight historic figures—four from Europe (Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, Vladimir Jabotinsky, and Abba Eban) and four from America (Louis D. Brandeis, Golda Meir, Ben Hecht, and Ron Dermer)—who reflect the intellectual and social revolutions that Zionism and Americanism brought to the world.
In some cases, the stories have been forgotten; in other cases, misrepresented; in still others, not yet given their full due. But they are central to the miraculous recovery of the Jewish people in the twentieth century. Taken together, they recount both a people’s return to its place among the nations and the impact on history that a single individual can make.
More than a century ago, after studying the early Zionist texts, Brandeis concluded that Jews were the “trustees” of their history, charged to “carry forward what others, in the past, have borne so well.” The stories in this book—recording the extraordinary efforts of extraordinary individuals that created the modern state of Israel and then sustained it—reinforce Brandeis’s observation for our own time.
The story of Zionism, and its interaction with Americanism, is a continuing one. This book is not only about the past, but the present and future as well.
And None Shall Make Them Afraid presents eight historic figures—four from Europe (Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, Vladimir Jabotinsky, and Abba Eban) and four from America (Louis D. Brandeis, Golda Meir, Ben Hecht, and Ron Dermer)—who reflect the intellectual and social revolutions that Zionism and Americanism brought to the world.
In some cases, the stories have been forgotten; in other cases, misrepresented; in still others, not yet given their full due. But they are central to the miraculous recovery of the Jewish people in the twentieth century. Taken together, they recount both a people’s return to its place among the nations and the impact on history that a single individual can make.
More than a century ago, after studying the early Zionist texts, Brandeis concluded that Jews were the “trustees” of their history, charged to “carry forward what others, in the past, have borne so well.” The stories in this book—recording the extraordinary efforts of extraordinary individuals that created the modern state of Israel and then sustained it—reinforce Brandeis’s observation for our own time.
The story of Zionism, and its interaction with Americanism, is a continuing one. This book is not only about the past, but the present and future as well.
- GenresIsrael
367 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 7, 2023
24 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 11, 2024
Impeccable read. Meticulously researched, beautifully written. I learned so many new things about Israel and the Holocaust. I got to meet the author in person at a book signing too and he is a first class mensch.
July 3, 2023
Everything Rick Richman writes is brilliant. Well worth the read and so glad this was written.
August 24, 2025
The Moral Architecture of a Nation
In an era saturated with histories that seek to deconstruct, debunk, and demoralize, Rick Richman’s And None Shall Make Them Afraid stands as a work of profound reconstruction. This collection of eight historical essays is not a comprehensive history of modern Israel, nor does it pretend to be. Instead, it is a brilliantly curated examination of the foundational moments and, more importantly, the foundational ideas that gave birth to and have sustained the Jewish state. Richman’s project is to remind the reader that Israel was not an accident of history, but the result of deliberate moral choices, intellectual rigor, and incredible courage.
The book’s strength lies in its focus. Each chapter isolates a pivotal event or figure—from the Balfour Declaration and the intellectual leadership of Ze’ev Jabotinsky to the daring capture of Adolf Eichmann—and uses it as a lens to examine a core principle. Richman’s analysis of the Balfour Declaration, for instance, is a masterclass in clearing away the fog of historical revisionism. He presents the document not as an act of colonial caprice, but as the sober recognition by a world power of a pre-existing, inalienable right of a people to their ancestral homeland. The logic is built brick by brick, grounded in the historical record and the language of the time, providing a powerful counter-argument to narratives that paint Zionism as an artificial imposition.
Similarly, the portrayal of Jabotinsky is not that of a mere political firebrand, but of a profound thinker who understood that liberty is not given, but secured. Jabotinsky’s "Iron Wall" concept is presented here with the clarity it deserves: not as a call for perpetual war, but as a sober assessment of reality. It was a recognition that for peace to be possible, the absolute right of the Jewish people to self-determination and self-defense had to be established beyond any doubt. This is a recurring theme: the affirmation that true peace can only be built upon a foundation of strength and moral self-assurance, not upon weakness or the hope for unearned goodwill.
Perhaps the most compelling chapter is the account of Eichmann’s capture and trial. Richman skillfully conveys how this was far more than an act of retribution; it was a profound act of sovereign justice. For the first time in two millennia, the Jewish people, acting through their own state, held one of their chief persecutors to account under the law. It was a declaration that the era of stateless vulnerability was over. The trial was not a descent into the passion of vengeance, but a demonstration of a nation’s solemn duty to memory, to justice, and to its own people. It affirmed the idea that a nation-state is the essential vehicle for protecting its citizens and upholding a moral order.
Richman’s writing is unapologetically focused on the agency and principles of Israel's founders and defenders. His work is a testament to the power of ideas and the individuals who champion them. If there is a limitation to this approach, it is that the book operates primarily at the level of high politics and intellectual history, with less attention paid to the broader social and cultural currents. This is not a critique so much as a definition of the book’s scope; its purpose is to analyze the moral and philosophical architecture of the state, and in this, it succeeds unequivocally.
And None Shall Make Them Afraid is an essential work for anyone seeking to understand the why of Israel, not just the how. It cuts through the noise of contemporary debate and returns to the first principles of justice, liberty, and the profound, difficult, and necessary work of building and preserving a civilization.
In an era saturated with histories that seek to deconstruct, debunk, and demoralize, Rick Richman’s And None Shall Make Them Afraid stands as a work of profound reconstruction. This collection of eight historical essays is not a comprehensive history of modern Israel, nor does it pretend to be. Instead, it is a brilliantly curated examination of the foundational moments and, more importantly, the foundational ideas that gave birth to and have sustained the Jewish state. Richman’s project is to remind the reader that Israel was not an accident of history, but the result of deliberate moral choices, intellectual rigor, and incredible courage.
The book’s strength lies in its focus. Each chapter isolates a pivotal event or figure—from the Balfour Declaration and the intellectual leadership of Ze’ev Jabotinsky to the daring capture of Adolf Eichmann—and uses it as a lens to examine a core principle. Richman’s analysis of the Balfour Declaration, for instance, is a masterclass in clearing away the fog of historical revisionism. He presents the document not as an act of colonial caprice, but as the sober recognition by a world power of a pre-existing, inalienable right of a people to their ancestral homeland. The logic is built brick by brick, grounded in the historical record and the language of the time, providing a powerful counter-argument to narratives that paint Zionism as an artificial imposition.
Similarly, the portrayal of Jabotinsky is not that of a mere political firebrand, but of a profound thinker who understood that liberty is not given, but secured. Jabotinsky’s "Iron Wall" concept is presented here with the clarity it deserves: not as a call for perpetual war, but as a sober assessment of reality. It was a recognition that for peace to be possible, the absolute right of the Jewish people to self-determination and self-defense had to be established beyond any doubt. This is a recurring theme: the affirmation that true peace can only be built upon a foundation of strength and moral self-assurance, not upon weakness or the hope for unearned goodwill.
Perhaps the most compelling chapter is the account of Eichmann’s capture and trial. Richman skillfully conveys how this was far more than an act of retribution; it was a profound act of sovereign justice. For the first time in two millennia, the Jewish people, acting through their own state, held one of their chief persecutors to account under the law. It was a declaration that the era of stateless vulnerability was over. The trial was not a descent into the passion of vengeance, but a demonstration of a nation’s solemn duty to memory, to justice, and to its own people. It affirmed the idea that a nation-state is the essential vehicle for protecting its citizens and upholding a moral order.
Richman’s writing is unapologetically focused on the agency and principles of Israel's founders and defenders. His work is a testament to the power of ideas and the individuals who champion them. If there is a limitation to this approach, it is that the book operates primarily at the level of high politics and intellectual history, with less attention paid to the broader social and cultural currents. This is not a critique so much as a definition of the book’s scope; its purpose is to analyze the moral and philosophical architecture of the state, and in this, it succeeds unequivocally.
And None Shall Make Them Afraid is an essential work for anyone seeking to understand the why of Israel, not just the how. It cuts through the noise of contemporary debate and returns to the first principles of justice, liberty, and the profound, difficult, and necessary work of building and preserving a civilization.
July 7, 2025
Interesting and easy to read (it's a little more than 200 pages of main text with another 100 or so of notes and a sizeable bibliography), these are important insights into Israel's history. Some of the chapters stretch the concept a little. None so far that it's a problem, though. This book might be particularly helpful for those seeking a primer on Israel's pre-history.
HH
HH
November 28, 2023
Solid read! I learnt more about my Jewish history and seeing the perspective of these pioneers to renew the Jewish state.
Gives also great perspective on how Jewish life was and you can see it being replayed even now. If Israel would have been created before the 1939...
Gives also great perspective on how Jewish life was and you can see it being replayed even now. If Israel would have been created before the 1939...
March 4, 2025
Finished Rick Richman’s AND NONE SHALL MAKE THEM AFRAID: EIGHT STORIES OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL (2023). Each chapter focusses on the contributions of an extraordinary and sometimes unlikely individual who played a prominent role in the creation and defense of Israel, their stories told within the context of the international machinations and intrigues supporting and often sabotaging the fate of Jews seeking refuge in their ancient homeland. The book begins with Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), an obscure journalist who had a prescient vision of the need for a Jewish nation established in Palestine after his reading of The Jewish Problem by Eugen Duhring, who argued for the expunging of Jews some 40 years before Hitler’s publication of Mein Kampf. Herzl organized the first international Zionist Congress for the purpose of galvanizing Jews to have a political identity as a people. Support for Zionism in America was prompted by Louis Brandeis, who saw the possibility for a Jewish state as an extension of American values of freedom and independence. Brandeis encouraged President Woodrow Wilson’s support of the 1917 Balfour Declaration in Great Britain, who took over governance of the Middle East from the Ottoman Turks. The declaration stated: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…” After the war, a Russian Jew, Chaim Weizmann, worked with his colleagues, T. E. Lawrence and Arab Sheik Faisal, to begin the process of turning the declaration into a reality. Faisal said in a speech, “we would show ourselves unworthy of [Arab freedom], if we did not now, as I do, say to the Jews—welcome back home.” It would have been a win-win situation for Jews and Arabs had the European powers and the United States acted in support. Instead, what followed were decades of reneging promises and treaties, cowardice in the face of the rising Nazis,* and ongoing terrorism by recalcitrant Muslims—with horrific results. The remaining chapters describe the self-determination of Israelis to take matters into their own hands, with the assistance of Golda Meir, Ben Hecht, Abba Eban, and Ron Dermer. Eban, Israel’s UN ambassador, wrote in 1948, “If the Arab States want peace with Israel, they can have it. If they want war, they can have that too. But whether they want peace or war, they can have it only with the State of Israel.”
I highly recommend AND NONE SHALL MAKE THEM AFRAID as an important primer in understanding the history of modern Israel and the lives of those who have played important roles in its survival. As the author concludes, the story of Israel is “part of a broader saga: one of freedom and democracy; of Jewish and American ideas playing out in the world; of an invisible baton passed from generation to generation.” Israel is America’s greatest ally. We forget and remain ignorant of our shared histories at our peril.
*Speaking of political impropriety, the author writes that “many Israelis considered President Obama the most anti-Israel,” given his passive-aggressive antagonism towards Israel and his kowtowing to the radical Islamist regime in Iran. Biden carried on the same policies that have increased the volatile relations between Israel and Iran’s terrorist minions. Israel can thank Obama and Biden in part for the October 2023 Hamas attack. A president Harris, she who pandered for anti-Semitic votes, would have made things even worse. In stark contrast, the possibility of peace in the region has been strengthened through the Abraham Accords, mediated by President Trump.
I highly recommend AND NONE SHALL MAKE THEM AFRAID as an important primer in understanding the history of modern Israel and the lives of those who have played important roles in its survival. As the author concludes, the story of Israel is “part of a broader saga: one of freedom and democracy; of Jewish and American ideas playing out in the world; of an invisible baton passed from generation to generation.” Israel is America’s greatest ally. We forget and remain ignorant of our shared histories at our peril.
*Speaking of political impropriety, the author writes that “many Israelis considered President Obama the most anti-Israel,” given his passive-aggressive antagonism towards Israel and his kowtowing to the radical Islamist regime in Iran. Biden carried on the same policies that have increased the volatile relations between Israel and Iran’s terrorist minions. Israel can thank Obama and Biden in part for the October 2023 Hamas attack. A president Harris, she who pandered for anti-Semitic votes, would have made things even worse. In stark contrast, the possibility of peace in the region has been strengthened through the Abraham Accords, mediated by President Trump.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews