Navigate to News section

Nabokov and the Israeli Ambassador

Today on Tablet, Yuri Leving on Arieh Levavi

by
Unknown Author
December 17, 2012
(Collage Tablet Magazine; original images courtesy of the author)
(Collage Tablet Magazine; original images courtesy of the author)

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.

These articles are not currently attributed to anyone. We’re working on it!