Nabokov and the Israeli Ambassador
Today on Tablet, Yuri Leving on Arieh Levavi
December 17, 2012
Today on Tablet, a friendship that might surprise you: Vladimir Nabokov and Arieh Levavi, Israel’s ambassador to the Switzerland.
More specifically, though, Levavi was the Israeli ambassador to Switzerland, a position he held from 1967 to 1975. For purposes of cultural exchange between the two countries, the budget of the Israeli embassy allocated money to invite luminaries from Switzerland to visit Jerusalem. Organizing these trips did not require any special approval from the ministries of foreign affairs and culture, so the choice of whom to invite was left to the ambassador himself. Levavi decided to include Nabokov in the list of candidates invited by him.
A really impressive story. Check out the rest here.
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