55 Fall 2024 strictly speaking, a work of history, and that some of the episodes are impressionistic and may have been dramatized. At the same time, they thank Lee and Ruth’s son, Jim, one of the protagonists in the story and his dad’s indefatigable protégé, for sharing his recollection of events, which was clearly indispensable. I am only sorry that we did not hear more from him. This volume was released almost 40 years after the Lockerbie tragedy and twenty years after Lee died of a crippling stroke. The reason for the delay in writing is hinted at in the acknowledgments, where Ruth thanks her nephews for helping her come out of her shell. Perhaps at her present station in life, having already celebrated her 90th birthday, she wanted to ensure that this important but also personal story be told and published before it was too late. Ruth’s admiration for and devotion to her husband comes across very clearly in these pages. He was obviously both the love of her life and her hero, and she was clearly enormously supportive of all his many efforts. Kreindler comes off as a much beloved father of both Jim and his sister, Laurie, to whom he was deeply devoted. In this volume we also learn a lot about relationships between lawyers who were former adversaries and even current opponents, and I can identify with Lee both in trying to be respectful of the other side and finding ways to come to an agreement. Lee Kreindler emerges from this story as a truly noble man and a real mensch. No wonder that he was revered by so many of his interlocutors, especially his clients, some of whom became like family members. I would have been interested in learning more about the extent to which Lee’s Jewish background influenced him. Was he familiar with the Biblical imperative “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20)? I know that Lee’s father, Harry, was born in Kraków. Did the Kreindlers lose family in the Shoah, and if so, did it affect Lee’s thinking? Significantly, during his army service, Lee was posted to the Pacific Theatre (he wrote for the army paper Stars and Stripes), not the European one where he might have seen firsthand material evidence of Nazi crimes. Did he draw any inspiration from Jewish history and tradition? Did he encounter antipathy to Jews at Dartmouth or Harvard Law School or later in life? Kreindler’s relationship with the prosecutor at the Eichmann trial, Gideon Hausner, who is mentioned in the volume, was obviously something very important to him. Lee’s funeral at Temple Beth El in Chappaqua is described, but there are few other distinctly “Jewish moments” or themes in the story. Of course, the social context of the story cannot be ignored. The Kreindlers lived in northern Westchester County, where most newcomers sought social acceptance and acculturation. This phenomenon was present in many other prosperous suburbs of American cities to which upwardly mobile Jews moved from the inner cities. Understandably, that meant that “Judaism lite" was the order of the day and the religious and cultural differences between them and the Christian families in the houses next door were not emphasized. Sometimes, it also meant having to establish new non-sectarian recreational facilities when old line country clubs refused to admit them – something unthinkable nowadays. Today, even in the face of an uptick in antisemitism, paradoxically, Jews have more self-confidence as Jews and are less hesitant to display their Jewish traditions. The fact that several recent presidents and presidential candidates have either Jewish in-laws, spouses, or grandchildren indicates the extent to which Jews have “made it” in America. This story provides a vignette of that phenomenon. It would have been interesting to have included an afterward at the end of the volume to explain what happened to each of the players after the case (there are some hints in specific cases in the text, but not systematically). With all of the references to Muammar Gaddafi and the negotiations with Libya, which was behind this horrific aerial slaughter, readers are left to look elsewhere for a follow-up discussion of what happened to him and the country over which he ruled. One feature of the volume that I found gratuitous, and at times even irritating, was the plethora of detailed descriptions of the physical appearance of each and every character and the repeated attempts to interpret their body language. That, I suppose, can be attributed to its “TV style,” and other readers may appreciate it. The Fight for Justice: Lee Kreindler and Lockerbie is a fitting monument to an extraordinary man who fought one of the great legal struggles of modern times and triumphed. It is a truly rewarding read. n Michael H. Traison is an American Israeli, practicing corporate law in the U.S. as a partner in Cullen and Dykman LLP. Traison has undergraduate and graduate degrees in history, with a particular focus on the history of Jews in Poland and Europe. Prior to being admitted to the bar over four decades ago, he taught history in the U.S. and Canada. His parents were child refugees from the Pogroms in the Pale of Settlement. Traison has been a member of the IAJLJ since the late 1980s and is the executive vice president of its American affiliate, the AAJLJ. Among his Zionist and communal activities, he served as a former President of the America Israel Chamber of Commerce in both Detroit and Chicago, a board member of the Decalogue Society of Jewish Lawyers and many other organizations.
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