Both of these new guides for suc­cess­ful busi­ness lead­er­ship intoday’s world draw heav­i­ly on Jew­ish val­ues, sea­soned with a good­ly­mea­sure of yid­dishkeit. Alper’s book is not only a man­u­al foren­tre­pre­neurs but is, at the same time, a mem­oir of the life and careerof the founder of Noah’s Bagels, telling the sto­ry of his jour­ney from ayoung man con­fined to a men­tal hos­pi­tal to becom­ing one of America’smost suc­cess­ful businessmen. 

Begin­ning as a sec­u­lar and some­what alien­at­ed Jew, Alper was drawn toJu­daism and an appre­ci­a­tion of its his­to­ry and val­ues as a result of avis­it to Israel. He learned that Jew­ish law and wis­dom warns again­st­greed and stress­es the impor­tance of hon­esty, fair­ness, com­mu­ni­ty­ser­vice, and help­ing those in need. Alper draws on quo­ta­tions from theTorah and oth­er Jew­ish sources and com­bines these with humor and graceas he tells his sto­ry. He shares the lessons he has learned along the­way and illus­trates them with exam­ples that demon­strate the impor­tance­of these prin­ci­ples in guid­ing him to entre­pre­neur­ial success. 

But his book ​“isn’t only about work. It’s about how to be anen­tre­pre­neur while still liv­ing a healthy, mean­ing­ful and worth­whilelife.” It’s also a joy to read. 

Zweifel and Raskin have a more ambi­tious goal: their book, The Rab­bi and the CEO,sets out to give the read­er ​“the tools you need to be an eth­i­cal and­ef­fec­tive leader.” The authors do this by refer­ring to the Ten­Com­mand­ments and expound­ing on their mean­ing as well as by recount­ingthe chal­lenges faced by lead­ers encoun­tered in the Bible and exam­in­ing­how they dealt with them. In their book, it mat­ters not whether there­ad­er is a small busi­ness­man or the CEO of a giant corporation.References cit­ed run the gamut from Moses to Bob Dylan and, in view ofRab­bi Raskin’s Chabad affil­i­a­tion, also include the Zohar as well as theTal­mud, ​“Ethics of the Fathers,” and numer­ous oth­er traditionalsources. 

Each sec­tion of the book has a sum­ma­ry of its con­tents labeled ​“The­Bot­tom Line” and ​“Tips” designed to help the read­er apply the advice­giv­en by the authors. The book is thor­ough­ly researched and replete with­foot­notes. It’s an easy read and con­tains many valu­able suggestions.

Addi­tion­al books fea­tured in this review: