The Maverick
by Thomas Harding
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, £25

W ho — or even what — was George Weidenfeld? At the most basic level he was a publisher, who rose from being a refugee from Vienna to a peerage.

But George Weidenfeld was so much more.

He was, in his public life, a visionary, a one-man diplomatic service, a creator, a fundraiser, a networker (a talent not to be sneezed at), an impresario, an entrepreneur, a facilitator and much else besides. And he was, above all else, a Jew.

Weidenfeld, who died in 2016, was perhaps the most well-connected man in the Western world, whose calls to politicians, thinkers, business leaders and philanthropists — even popes — would always be taken.

The strength of Thomas Harding’s biography is the context it provides. It is not a conventional biography; it is not, for a start, chronological. And it misses out and underplays long periods of Weidenfeld’s life.

His time as Chaim Weizmann’s chief of staff, for example, is covered in less than a paragraph.

But by structuring the book as a series of chapters telling the stories behind Weidenfeld’s publication of various key books, and then diverting within those stories to other aspects of his life — ignoring chronology to explore what made Weidenfeld tick, what he was interested in and what he was doing — The Maverick well reflects Weidenfeld himself, who was never at any time focused on just one thing.

Most importantly, Harding, who never met his subject, understands and conveys well the most important thing of all about Weidenfeld. He was driven by the need for success, yes.

But he saw his success — indeed his life — as being in the service of Israel and the Jewish people.

So much of what he did was about ensuring Israel’s safety. Harding details, for example, the story of how the original draft of Max Hasting’s biography of Entebbe hero Yoni Netanyahu was bowdlerised at the request of various senior Israelis (and the Netanyahu family) and how Weidenfeld betrayed his own principles in doing so. Yet he had been the publisher who took on all comers to publish Lolita, and who would always battle for his authors when authority tried to intervene.

George Weidenfeld

George Weidenfeld (Photo: Getty)

Almost always, that is; if Israel was asking for parts of the Hastings book to be left out, Weidenfeld would oblige. Nothing — not his professional pride, not his duty to his author, not his principles — was more important to him than Israel’s security.

Indeed when I got to know George towards the end of his life (I first met him when I became JC editor in 2008 and had my last conversation with him a few months before his death), his obsession was establishing and financing Israel Studies chairs at major universities.

These are part of his enduring legacy. George’s hospitality — his parties, dinners and lunches — was legendary. Harding convincingly explains how George was also driven by a profound fear of loneliness.

He could hardly bear ever to be on his own, and a lunch or evening alone in his flat was always to be avoided.

But these social events were not just an end in themselves — captivating and fascinating as they nonetheless always were, when you had no idea who you might meet, other than that they would be interesting.

George would put these contacts to use, and this is what enabled his enduring legacy.

Creations such as the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, the Blavatnik School of Government, the Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Scholarships, the Syrian refugee programme and the university chairs would not exist were it not for George Weidenfeld.

The Maverick is a sensitive and worthy study of a great man.