Take, for example, his sketch of Meir Arlozorov, the Labour leader and mayor of Tel Aviv who was assassinated in June 1933. Lebrecht initially speculates, with no evidence, that Vladimir Jabotinsky’s right-wing Revisionists killed Arlozorov. He then erroneously asserts that Revisionist violence that began with Arlozorov’s murder continued over the years “culminating in the 1995 assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.” Yigal Amir, Rabin’s killer, was no Jabotinskyite Revisionist. He was a religious Zionist with links to the religious settler movement. Lebrecht then suggests, again, without hard evidence, that it was Nazi agents who murdered him on orders from Joseph Goebbels, whose half-Jewish wife had been Arlozorov’s one-time lover and had secretly met him in Berlin in 1933.

Why focus on Arlozorov? He hardly changed the world. Nor was he a genius driven by anxiety, notwithstanding the author’s claim, again with no evidence, that when Hitler rose to power “Victor Arlozorov [was] the only man on the Zionist Executive who [knew] what need[ed] to be done.” Why, then, write about the man? Surely it is not because his name graces a major Tel Aviv thoroughfare. More likely, it is because of the author’s self-described “romantic involvement” with the niece of a man who resented the acquittal of two Revisionists accused of the murder.

Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld was a British activist who saved many Jews both during and after World War II. He was not the only rabbi who did so; many American rabbis, and not only rabbis, likewise devoted Herculean efforts to save Europe’s Jews. The Americans are not mentioned at all; Schonfeld’s exploits command two separate discussions. Is it because Lebrecht writes, “two of my sisters work as his teachers. I, my children, and four of my grandchildren attend his schools?”

THERE ARE other examples. To cite but a few. Is Lebrecht’s case for Rabbi Schneerson any stronger because Lebrecht “spent Shabbat in Shanghai ... heard the Purim reading in Beijing ... danced at a Chabad wedding in the poshest hotel in Venice ... and prayed for the Rebbe’s health in Melbourne,” among other things? What does the reader gain by learning that when Primo Levi, Auschwitz survivor and author, committed suicide, Lebrecht reports that the news “stuns me like the roof falling in”? Or that Lebrecht had registered for a course at the Hebrew University with the Hebrew poetess Leah Goldberg?

Lebrecht has produced a volume that at times fascinates, at times overreaches. He covers a tremendous amount of ground in succinct, well-crafted prose. His brief sketches introduce readers both to Jews they have probably never heard of, as well as to the private lives of Jews who are better known—and in some cases, universally recognized.

As Lebrecht would have it, anti-Semitism drove these Jews to achieve unusual levels of achievement. With the recrudescence of anti-Semitism in Europe, and its spread to the United States, Lebrecht would have us believe that Jews once again will expand the envelope of excellence and creativity. As he asserts on his final page, “The Jewish Question reopens. What is to be done about the Jews? As the anxiety rises, so, too, does the flood of invention.”

Perhaps. It is true that over the decades and centuries, well before Lebrecht’s starting point of 1847, presumably chosen so that he could cover a neatly rounded century prior to the creation of the State of Israel, some Jews certainly have been geniuses. Many, indeed, most, were not—no matter where or when they lived. Some Jews changed the world. The overwhelming majority did not. Some Jews were driven by anxiety to overachieve. Most were not. Ultimately, Lebrecht fails to demonstrate that there somehow is a link between Jews, genius, and anxiety. As the Scottish courts might rule: his case simply is “not proven.”

Dov S. Zakheim was an Under Secretary of Defense (2001–2004) and a Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (1985–87). He is Vice Chairman of the Center for the National Interest.