A Spy in Canaan: My Life As a Jewish-American Businessman Spying for Israel in Arab Lands - Hardcover

Schack, Howard H.; Jeffers, H. P.

4.07

15 ratings by Goodreads

9781559721783: A Spy in Canaan: My Life As a Jewish-American Businessman Spying for Israel in Arab Lands

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559721782 ISBN 13: 9781559721783

Publisher: Birch Lane Pr, 1993

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A middle-aged Jewish businessman from Westchester, New York, reveals his secret life as a spy for the Mossad, Israel's legendary intelligence service

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From Kirkus Reviews:

The not-quite-exciting memoir of the middle-aged owner of a construction company who doubled as a spy for Israel's Mossad. It's 1973; Israel is under attack in the Yom Kippur war, and Schack, an N.Y.C.-area businessman, wants to help. Because of his construction work, he possesses plans for a Saudi naval expansion program, which he takes to the Israeli commercial consulate in Washington--only to be treated to a brief lecture on international law that dashes his hopes. But some days later, while driving on a highway, Schack's pulled over by a Mossad agent, and soon he's meeting his handler in Manhattan's Washington Square Park and has been ``invited to join the most romantic and successful brotherhood in the world.'' Off to Riyadh after brief instruction, Schack gains access to oil-refinery information by misleading a lonely fellow American. Close contact (and feasts) with powerful sheikhs leads to similar successes involving major military installations, airports, and Iraqi nuclear plants. It's a genuinely intrepid adventure but- -perhaps because the author seems to be walking a legal/ethical tightrope--Schack the man rarely comes through, though it's clear enough that he's a talented spy, tough (he already owns a handgun), and persuasive (``Take what you want,'' says one Egyptian, and Schack does--an attach‚-case full of documents). A fascinating story undermined often by its wooden dialogue and by cautious, and overly polemical, exposition. (Maps and sixteen pages of photographs--not seen) -- Copyright �1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Dismayed by Israel's vulnerability during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Schack, an American who headed a construction firm, volunteered his services to the Jewish state and was soon posing as a gentile, gathering intelligence in Arab countries from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s for the Mossad. Using the name Howard Mackenzie ("an earnest, non-ideological . . . businessman out to make a buck"), he networked with high-ranking Arab officials and generals from Libya to Kuwait. His sighting of a Soviet ship in a Syrian port contributed to the success of the hostage-rescuing Entebbe raid in 1976, and he obtained information about the construction of a nuclear-reactor facility outside Baghdad that led to Israel's 1981 bombing of Iraq's Osirak plant. Schack is not at all modest or self-effacing; he records many compliments and expressions of gratitude received from his Mossad handlers--readers will feel every one of them was richly deserved. His suspenseful account, written with Jeffers, coauthor with Sheila MacRae of Hollywood Mother of the Year , is like a Walter Mitty fantasy come to life, and Schack's jaunty humor and observations of Arab culture and customs deepen the reader's enjoyment. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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