Gordon Zacks has worked in the interest of the Jewish people ever since his slippers business, R. G. Barry, gave him the opportunity for philanthropy. In the course of his advocacy, Zacks has worked with people in American and international government. His book, Defining Moments, contains short stories of these important figures and others and uses them to teach principles of success.

Zacks’s gallery includes but is not limited to Avital and Natan Sharansky, Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion, the Danish Christian fishermen who helped Jews escape from Hitler’s Germany, George H. W. Bush, The Rebbe, Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Yitzhak Shamir, and Ronald Reagan.

Zacks worked most closely with Bush, whose defining moment the 1991 Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaigns. Bush and Yitzhak Shamir had conflicting mannerisms, but Bush was able to put their personal differences aside and work for the betterment of America and Israel. He convinced Shamir not to retaliate when Saddam Hussein launched Scud missiles at Israel, allowing the U.S.A. to assemble coalition forces in Saudi Arabia and push Saddam’s forces out of Kuwait.

Some of the “defining moments” the author describes have to do with the freeing of Jews in the Soviet Union. Natan Sharansky in particular was jailed in Siberia for nine years, and his wife Avital made a passionate plea to Ronald Reagan to help him and other Soviet Jews. Meir, Ben-Gurion, and Shamir were Israeli prime ministers. Senator Jackson, though a Democrat, recognized Israel’s potential as an ally in the Middle East and was a good friend to the state.

Zacks’s characterization of Reagan is intriguing. Reagan, even before he was ravaged by Alzheimer’s, had to ask Zacks his name each time they met. He was focused on the big picture and in communicating his vision to everyone else. For Zacks, Reagan’s defining moment came at Reykjavik, where he walked away from the negotiating table with Gorbachev. The Soviet premier at that time refused to release the Jews and disarm his nuclear weapons unless Reagan stopped America’s Strategic Defense Initiative. Reagan wanted his terms met without condition, and he got it by the next summit talks through massive defense spending. Peace through strength worked.

Zacks brings out some good leadership principles, some common and some not: “Acts of courage are not always pure and simple.” “Not resisting to evil is evil.” “Communicate in basic, human terms.” “Being a leader isn’t always a role one seeks or even desires.” “Don’t jeopardize a strategic partnership for less than an existential threat.” “Retain integrity at all costs.”

The book ends with a questionnaire about how your obituary may read. What were your defining moments? Are you following your passion in life? What obstacles are in your way, and is it worth the pain to overcome them? What if you had another 30 years?

Zacks reveals just enough about himself for the reader to want to dig in a little more, for example: if the spiritual Rebbe was so intriguing, what made Zacks refuse several times to get into Kabbalah? Did he recognize anything he could have done differently in the dealings of these important people?

I like the book. It is a good blend of history and principle. A stronger dose of leadership teaching can be found in Leadership is an Art by Max Depree, who also espouses the same ideas regarding leader as servant and enabler. In this book, though, the reader also gets a sense of the struggles the Jewish people have had to face, despite what David Duke and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad say. The political intrigue causes the reader to slow down a little, but it’s worth it.