Childhood friendship and lifelong support between Alexander Gideon and Manfred Zakheim

The relationship between Alexander Gideon and Manfred Zakheim is a lifelong exchange of care, service, money, and obligation, rooted in childhood intimacy and tested by decades of crises. Manfred’s recollections reveal a bond that is neither simple devotion nor uncomplicated friendship: he can feel used and resentful, yet repeatedly acts for Alexander because the old attachment still holds.

Childhood Friendship and Its Unequal Tenderness

Manfred’s account begins with the two of them as boys. He taught Alexander to make animal shapes with shadows from their fingers; he read to him at bedtime and played a card game called Black Bear. Manfred repeatedly arranged the game so that Alexander would win without realizing that the victory had been given to him. Alexander, in turn, tried to compensate Manfred whenever Manfred lost, bringing him a beer, giving him small gifts, or helping him in practical ways. Their play already carried the pattern that would recur in adulthood: Manfred quietly managing Alexander’s distress, while Alexander answered care with gestures of his own.

The childhood bond included more than games. Manfred remembers Alexander visiting and seeking him out, and recalls an incident in which Alexander disrupted a tense confrontation between Manfred and Alexander’s father. When Manfred left for the British Army in 1941, Alexander kept up a personal correspondence through packages sent every few weeks, including sweets, socks, newspapers, magazines, and letters with drawings. Manfred replied with postcards, stamps, and banknotes. The exchange continued across Manfred’s postings in the Middle East and Europe, making their friendship persist across years of separation.

Mutual Support Through Adult Crises

When Manfred returned in 1946, Alexander made room for him in the family home. Alexander’s father later rented Manfred his first apartment in Jerusalem. Their support continued through adulthood: Manfred recalls giving Alexander access to his apartment, hosting him after he was injured during a raid near the Sea of Galilee, and helping him prepare for university examinations in German and Latin. Alexander stood as a witness at Manfred’s wedding, and later he and his father hosted Manfred’s young daughter for a summer at Zikhron Yaakov.

The friendship also took institutional and financial forms. After conflict over Alexander’s father’s handling of the family property, Manfred and Alexander joined forces to plan a coup. Manfred says he conducted eleven lawsuits on Alexander’s behalf before they recovered the property and secured the father’s removal. He also recalls supporting Alexander through his divorce proceedings. In return, Alexander paid for the honeymoon of Manfred’s daughter and her husband in Japan and established savings accounts for each of Manfred’s grandchildren. The record therefore presents aid as reciprocal, even when its form and scale differ: Manfred supplies legal labor and personal loyalty, while Alexander provides housing, money, and family support.

Loyalty, Resentment, and Repeated Service

In later years, Manfred’s loyalty becomes visibly strained. He complains that Alexander repeatedly puts others through humiliation, then tries to repair the damage through apologies, explanations, and money. Yet when Alexander asks him to help Boaz establish a communal settlement on abandoned family land at Zikhron, Manfred carries out the assignment. He travels there, pleads, pays, and works to calm the local police. He also says that he continues to invest about two hundred and fifty dollars each month in a venture on Alexander’s instructions, while reminding him that money from the Magdiel–Toulouse transaction is available in an account.

Manfred’s complaints do not cancel his affection; they expose its cost. He describes himself as still bound to Alexander by old memories and acknowledges that he continues to respond to his wishes despite feeling manipulated. He compares his readiness to comply with the deference he once felt toward a powerful military commander. The comparison conveys how Alexander’s authority operates between them: not as formal power, but as a habit of attachment that Manfred recognizes and resents without managing to escape.

Recognition in the Face of Illness

As Alexander’s illness advances, Manfred’s anger gives way, without disappearing, to concern. Recalling a meeting in London, he says he felt sympathy for what Alexander had made of his life and worry about the way he was facing death. He remembers the vulnerable child who once called him Uncle Malfrend and sought sweets from his pockets, setting that memory against the demanding, formidable man of their later years.

Manfred’s long account is also a plea for recognition. He lays out the history of practical and financial support, asks Alexander to acknowledge that these events happened, and presses him to answer whether they are still friends. His appeal does not resolve the imbalance between them; instead, it makes the imbalance part of the relationship’s final reckoning. Their friendship endures as both a mutual history of generosity and a recurring cycle in which Manfred protests, remembers, and returns to help.