Preface

In writing these autobiographical pages I am guided by two aims. Should my work and activity ever merit preoccupation with my person, I want to protect myself from guesses, inaccuracies and inventions, which all too frequently are the fate of biographies; and I wish to give to my children and to my fellow men an account of a life spent. I call it kheshbon ha nefesh, a Hebrew expression which has no exact translation, and at closest would be “searching of the soul” of a man who went ways all of his own.