In the beginning, he was an errant idol-smasher in Ur who destroyed all the statues in the shop where he worked while his father, the owner, was out of town.
In the middle, he was condemned to death for questioning polytheism and responded by growing his household into a people with an entirely new religion.
In the end, he was tested by God’s command that he sacrifice his son Isaac.
Skepticism and faith, sacrifice and obedience were the poles of his story.
In his new book, Abraham: The First Jew, Anthony Julius brings to life the first patriarch of the Jewish people in a narrative built simultaneously around the extremes in his life and those same tensions inherent in Judaism.
Deputy Chairman of the international law firm Mishcon de Reya and Professor of Law, University College London, Anthony Julius is the author of four earlier books, served as Princess Diana’s divorce lawyer and defended Deborah Lipstadt in a groundbreaking trial after she was sued for libel by a Holocaust denier.
Julius will be in conversation with Temple Emanu-El's Rabbi Sarah H. Reines.