Eighty years ago, Passover 1941, the festival of freedom was clouded for Jews in the Middle East with a deep fear for the future. British forces were being pushed back from Libya as German forces advanced — the conquest of Egypt became more important than the exodus from Egypt. Two German academics, Klaus-Michael Mallman and … Read more
Review of Airey Neave’s Nuremberg – A personal record of the trial of the major Nazi war criminals Biteback , £9.99 Airey Neave MP is unfortunately remembered more for the manner of his death in a car bomb, planted by Irish Republicans at the House of Commons in 1979 than for his courageous deeds during … Read more
The research interests of David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol in the south of England, focus on neo-liberalism, corporate influences on health and science, the counter-jihad movement, Islamophobia — and the Zionist movement. His academic work has been to dissect and examine campaigns and networks — and in the context … Read more
Review of Lutz Fiedler’s Matzpen: A History of Israeli Dissidence (Edinburgh University Press 2020) pp.408 Lutz Fiedler’s highly informative book about the far Left group, Matzpen, is a welcome addition to the recording of both Jewish and Israeli history. This book started life as a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor Dani Diner, a stalwart of … Read more
Review of Emil Draitser’s In the Jaws of a Crocodile: A Soviet Memoir, published by the University of Wisconsin Press 2021, pp.276 What’s a Purim miracle? A Jewish boy getting into Moscow University! Charlie Chaplin once commented that ‘to truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain and play with it’. For Jews, … Read more
Review of Suzanne Rutland’s Lone Voice: The Wars of Isi Leibler, published by Gefen Books 2012, pp. 663 This book is about the life and times of Isi Leibler, a leader of Australian Jewry and a bare knuckle fighter for Jewish rights. Lone Voice: The Wars of Isi Leibler (Gefen Books) is also an account of … Read more
WHEN THE BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY, Dominic Raab, was asked last month about the plight of the Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic minority in China, Raab invoked the odyssey of his father, a Czech Jew who came to the UK in 1938. Similarly, Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, argued during his recent confirmation hearings in the Senate … Read more
Review of Julius Margolin’s Journey to the Land of the Zeks and Back: A Memoir of the Gulag translated by Stefani Hoffman, published by Oxford University Press, pp.640 You have to touch death to know what life is”, Julius Margolin wrote in Tel Aviv in 1946, after seven years in Stalin’s Gulag. His was one … Read more
Last Saturday, tens of thousands of people came out across Russia in support of Alexei Navalny, the detained opponent of Vladimir Putin. Demonstrations took place from Vladivostok in the East to St. Petersburg in the West — and significantly outside the Russian Embassy in Tel Aviv. Over 3,000 demonstrators have been arrested. In the past, … Read more
This timely tome (The Gulf Region and Israel: Old Struggles, New Alliances) by Sigurd Neuberger appeared just as US President Trump’s Deal of the Century was sidelined and diplomatic ties established with several Gulf States. The formal recognition of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates was considered more important than extending sovereignty over … Read more