Many years ago, during my year of study at Hebrew University, I took a course on Israeli politics. At one point our professor told us about a survey taken of members of Knesset in which they were asked to designate their profession.

His point was that a far higher proportion of Knesset members (at least at that time) considered themselves politicians by profession, as opposed to members of the U.S. Congress, who were more likely to consider themselves members of other professions. In the course of the lecture, though, our professor mentioned that one member of the Knesset had neither called himself a politician nor named a non-political occupation, but rather had identified his profession as "statesman."
 
That Knesset member, of course, was Abba Eban -- Israel's first ambassador to the United Nations and the United States, and later its Foreign Minister --  who died Sunday at the age of 87. His response to that survey, it seems to me, sums up Eban very well. The description says much about the qualities that made Eban Israel's premier diplomat for the first quarter century of its existence. And the fact that he used it as a description of himself in responding to a survey says much about the elements of his personality that made him less popular within Israel than the list of his achievements might suggest.
 
By the time of his death, Eban had long ceased to play an active role in Israel's governmental affairs, so his death has no immediate impact on either Israel's current diplomatic challenges or its hotly contested election campaign. Yet the timing of his death makes it hard to avoid comparing the Israel of today to the Israel that Eban served as ambassador and cabinet minister. And even those of us well to Eban's right politically cannot help but feel some nostalgia for the latter.
 
Eban had all the skills one would expect in the consummate diplomat that he assuredly was. But what made him unique was his oratorical ability in English, which was virtually unparalleled. You probably would not need two hands to count the number people in the twentieth century who could match him for the power of his English oratory. And that power was one of Israel's most important weapons in its earliest years.
 
The Israel that Eban served was nowhere near as strong economically as the Israel of today, and its military might, though formidable, was less impressive than it is currently. But Israel in those years had the power born of a moral standing that all but its most implacable enemies could not help but recognize. And it was Eban more than anyone else who gave voice to that moral power and harnessed it as an aid to Israel's survival.
 
Even those of us who reject utterly the hypocrisy of moral equivalence have no choice but to recognize that Israel's moral standing is nowhere near as universally acknowledged today as it was in Eban's time. There are many reasons for that change, including the passing of the generation of Europeans for whom the Holocaust was a vivid memory. And the world's moral amnesia in no way excuses us from the imperative of making Israel's case, persuasively and repeatedly.
 
Still, it's hard not to feel at least a little nostalgic for the time when Israel's moral standing was universally recognized, at least in the West. And while there are many factors that made that moral standing possible, it was Abba Eban's eloquence that made it the formidable weapon that it was. At a time when Israel was far weaker than today -- economically, militarily and demographically -- Abba Eban's oratory was a critical weapon in its arsenal. All who rejoice that Israel has thrived in the face of the many challenges it has faced owe a debt of gratitude to Abba Eban for the critical role he played during its most precarious period.
 
Yehi zikhro barukh -- may his memory be for a blessing.