This mem­oir recounts a life­long com­mit­ment to pub­lic ser­vice root­ed in a Jew­ish immi­grant expe­ri­ence. The thread that ties the author’s career togeth­er is a desire to give back for the priv­i­lege of a prepara­to­ry school and Ivy League edu­ca­tion. The per­son­al sto­ry high­lights the high expec­ta­tions and sup­port of striv­ing par­ents in upstate New York, anti­semitism at Yale in the ear­ly 1960s, falling in love with a French-Jew­ish girl in Paris, mil­i­tary ser­vice in Ger­many, col­lab­o­ra­tion with Jean Mon­net, and an even­tu­al return to Jew­ish tra­di­tion. The pro­fes­sion­al side of the book includes can­did insights of work­ing with Hen­ry Kissinger and Paul Vol­ck­er for a decade, as well as assist­ing Baron Edmond de Roth­schild with his phil­an­thropy in Israel. The con­clud­ing chap­ters, which focus on the rise of bare-knuck­led polit­i­cal com­bat in Wash­ing­ton and its impact on pub­lic ser­vice, should be of inter­est to a broad Jew­ish audience.