In a year of anniversaries which relate to the history of modern Israel, perhaps the centenary of the Balfour Declaration is the most significant. For those who resent the rise of a Hebrew republic in the Land of Israel, it represents a colossal historic mistake. It clearly upsets the ideological applecart, anchored in the belief … Read more
Review of Sean Matgamna’s book The Left in Disarray Most of the time, the key terms of the anti-capitalist Left have no clear meaning, they express and convey emotion, not reason. They are the tools of demagogy more than of reasoned discourse … our language of politics is decayed, disablingly. So opens Sean Matgamna’s timely … Read more
There are many ways to fight a war. And there are many ways to depict it after hostilities have ceased. Popular culture tends to focus on the battlefield whether on the ground, in the air or at sea. Yet many gave their lives to defeat Nazism in areas that succeeding generations have tended to gloss … Read more
The Kurds are a fighting people that have proven political commitment and political moderation – they are worthy of their own political independence. So spoke prime minister Netanyahu in June 2014. The overwhelming Kurdish vote in support of independence last Monday was endorsed by Israelis of all political views. It built on half a century … Read more
The overwhelming Kurdish vote in support of independence on Monday was endorsed by Israelis of all political views. It built on half a century of Israeli-Kurdish cooperation which commenced when Golda Meir was Foreign Minister. Nahum Admoni, Mossad chief in the 1980s, described this approach on initiating assistance to the Kurds as “definitely humanitarian, an … Read more
This is a year of anniversaries. One hundred and twenty years since the first Zionist Congress. Fifty years since the victory in the Six Day war. Forty years since the election of Menahem Begin and the first right wing government in Israel – and many other lesser historical events. But perhaps most significantly it is … Read more
Last Sunday Masha Slepak was buried in Jerusalem’s Har HaMenuchot cemetery alongside her husband, Vladimir. For virtually the entire duration of the Soviet Jewry campaign in the UK, they were the central figures among the Moscow refuseniks. For Jewish “tourists” to the USSR, their apartment on Moscow’s Gorky Street was a fixed destination. Masha’s name … Read more
Review of Divided We Stand: A Journey with Judge Israel Finestein QC by Colin Lang (Vallentine Mitchell 2017) pp.262 ISRAEL “SHMUL” Finestein (1921-2009) was a successful lawyer and community leader from his student days in post-war Britain. He possessed “a dry wit, combined with a placid nature” but this belied a fierce desire for … Read more
The root for “coin” in Hebrew, tevah, is the same as that of the “nature” of a human being. Just as God stamped an individuality on a person, so an ancient moneyer hammered a die on to a circle of silver. Coinage was also a form of propaganda for those in authority and conveyed often … Read more
Review of Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman (Yale University Press 2017) pp. 304, £16.99 The Israeli novelist, Amos Oz, described Yitzhak Rabin as ‘not a charismatic man, but rather a logical, skilful captain’. Rabin was both a political dove and a military hawk, who never pretended to be a far-sighted intellectual, had no small … Read more