Colin ShindlerThe far-left candidate in the British Labour Party leadership contest, Jeremy Corbyn, is performing very well. He stands out from the other candidates in projecting a clear vision of the future in an age of austerity and plucks at the socialist heartstrings of many a party member – a yearning for traditional Labour values and … Read more
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s attempts to be re-elected by confronting the White House, two weeks before Israel’s election, antagonised many American Jews, over two thirds of whom had voted for President Barack Obama; it highlighted fundamental differences in approach between the Jewish state and the most powerful Diaspora community. The same was true in … Read more
June 18 marks 200 years since the Duke of Wellington’s forces defeated Napoleon’s armies in a muddy field in Belgium. The battle is seen as the final act in one of the greatest military campaigns in European history, the end of a decade-long struggle for power on the continent and the day Wellington saved Britain … Read more
Israel’s Security Men: The Arab-Fighting Political Careers of Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak by Thomas Mitchell (McFarland 2015) pp. 256 $35 Since the Six Day War in 1967, the tendency of IDF chiefs of staff to enter the political bearpit has been accentuated. Those who left under a cloud, such as … Read more
Moshe Levinger, who died last week, was the symbolic initiator of the settlement drive in the West Bank, following Israel’s lightning victory in six days in 1967. With some of his students, reputedly posing as Swiss tourists wishing to hold a Pesach Seder, he booked in at a Hebron hotel in April 1968 – and … Read more
Saved: Jews who had survived the Nazis in Europe were brought in huge ships to Britain to begin new lives Seventy years ago this week, on May 8 1945, many British Jews said the shehechayanu blessing to give thanks that they had survived to see that day. It was Victory in Europe Day, which marked … Read more
Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron by Menachem Klein (Hurst and Co London) 336 pp THE TITLE of this book, Lives in Common, was truer of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs before 1948 – when the state of Israel was established – than today, Indeed the notion has been replaced … Read more
Last week saw the passing of two former Soviet Jewish refuseniks, Vladimir Slepak and Vladimir Prestin, who were not permitted to leave the USSR for almost 20 years. It was only when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 that the gates were finally opened for a small group of long-term Moscow activists. Slepak and … Read more
Red Notice: A True Stroy of High Finance, Murder and One man’s Fight for Justice By Bill Browder Bantam Press (London 2015) 374 pages During the 1990s, international capitalism discovered the dysfunctional society of post-Communist Russia. Privatization offered Western investors the opportunity of unheard of profits in hitherto unknown territory. In Russia itself die-hard … Read more
Nazi Germany and the Arab World What if Monty had lost in the Middle East? By Colin Shindler, April 8, 2015 Meeting of malevolent minds: Mufti and Hitler in 1941 By Francis R. Nicosia Cambridge University Press, £60 What would have happened if Montgomery had lost at El Alamein and Hitler had defeated the Soviet … Read more