And Perhaps.The Story of Ruth Dayan

xvi, 236, [4] pages. DJ is in a plastic sleeve. Signed on the front free endpaper by Ruth Dayan. Inscription says: To Dear Gerda, Shalom--and all that goes with it. Ever, Ruth Dayan,16-6-79. Book includes a Foreword, as well as 17 black and white photographs of Ruth Dayan and her family between pages 112 and 113. Chapters include: Nahalal Nights; London with Moshe; Sirius; Shimron; Trial and Prison; "Who Will Hire a One-eyed Man?'' Four Children on Our Farm; The War of Independence; Weavers and Silversmiths in Tents; Transition; The Orange Blouse; Charisma in the Jungle; The Six-Day War; and Daggers and Rings. Ruth Dayan (born 6 March 1917) is the founder of the Maskit fashion house and is active in many social causes. She was the first wife of the late Israeli defense force General and politician Moshe Dayan. Ruth Schwartz (later Dayan) was born in Haifa in 1917, one of two daughters born to Tzvi and Rachel (née Klimkar) Schwartz, Jewish immigrants of the Second Aliyah. She was married to Moshe Dayan from 1935 to 1971, when they divorced. During their marriage, they lived in Nahalal, and later Tzahala. Dayan has three children: Yael Dayan, a former Knesset member and Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv; Ehud (Udi) Dayan, a writer; and Asaf "Assi" Dayan, an actor and filmmaker. In 2010, Dayan collaborated on her life story with Anthony David. Dayan created a sensation with her tell-all book Or Did I Dream the Dream? The Story of Ruth Dayan, coauthored with Helga Dudman in 1973, which became a bestseller. Dayan said her husband "had such bad taste in women." Sparing no one, including herself, Ruth Dayan tells the story of her life as a pioneer, a wife, a mother, and an ardent participant in her country's struggle for freedom and peace. With wit and candor, she tells what it is like to be the mother of three talented, unpredictable children, and the wife of a living legend. When her marriage to General Dayan ended in 1971, it signified the beginning of a new and even more meaningful life for this resilient, resourceful, and warmhearted woman. Derived from a Kirkus review: Ruth Dayan is encountered on page one carving "RS" and "MD" -- for Ruth Schwarz and Moshe Dayan -- on a eucalyptus tree that enchanted autumn evening in 1934 and on the last page she's garnering in friends' reactions to her divorce from the now famous General Dayan in 1971, and on the pages and pages in between there's a great deal more about her former husband, Moshe at training camp, Moshe the "complete individualist," Moshe in jail during World War II, Moshe's altercations with neighbors "about things like water rights," Moshe's injury and the resultant eye patch, Moshe's "charisma," Moshe's attractiveness to women and -- thunderclap -- his affairs with same. There are naturally descriptions of her own life -- teenage love for a boy named Zvi, her agrarian inclinations, "the eternal friction between me and Moshe's parents," her part in nation building, her faithfulness to Moshe "except for one fleeting romantic episode," a stay with Dr. Schweitzer at Lambarene, a trip to America -- but while Ruth's story it is more a story of. . . Moshe--who, considering his fabled charisma, just might sell this book.…