Colin ShindlerSeveral decades ago, the journalist, Uzi Benziman, wrote a biography of Ariel Sharon. The Hebrew version appeared as He Doesn’t Stop at Red Lights. The English-language edition was sedately entitled Sharon: An Israeli Caesar — perhaps for a more impressionable readership. Yet both titles encompass the complexity of Sharon, the hard-line politician who gave up … Read more
Memo to Mr Putin: Stalin was a tyrant By Colin Shindler, January 3, 2014 Follow The JC on Twitter Vladimir Putin’s jocular comment, floating the possibility of erecting a statue of Stalin in Russia — since one of “the cruel dictator”, Cromwell, stood outside the House of Commons — clearly went down well among Russian … Read more
Like Dreamers By Yossi Klein Halevi Published by Harper Collins (New York 2013) pp.584 Everyone’s life is interesting. Excerpts can easily be turned into a soap or a tabloid saga. Like Dreamers follows the lives of several paratroopers, belonging to the 55th Reserve Brigade, who participated in the conquest of Jerusalem during the Six … Read more
Uncivil War: The Israel Conflict in the Jewish Community by Keith Kahn-Harris (David Paul London 2013) The angst and anguish of British Jews in comprehending and coping with Israel’s political and military actions are documented and dissected in Keith Kahn-Harris’s book. It attempts to disentangle the different types of reaction to a specific event. Indeed the author … Read more
‘His career was as brilliant and promising as it was meteoric and short-lived. His advent seemed to usher in a new era flashing a ray of hope to a darkened world. He faced the desperate problems of our age with courage, with youthful vigour, with profound understanding and deep sympathy for the underprivileged, the disinherited … Read more
Geoffrey Levy’s Daily Mail article seemed like a family affair — only Jews were the main protagonists — Ralph Miliband, Eric Hobsbawm, Harold Laski. Each grappled with their Jewishness and how to repair the world in dark times. Hobsbawm remained an unrepentant Stalinist, who, despite his Jewish origin, supported the Nazi-Soviet pact at a time … Read more
I first met Jacob Sonntag, the founder-editor of the Jewish Quarterly in late 1982 at his home in Mill Hill in the aftermath of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. I had been deeply involved in opposing this war against the PLO in the wake of the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador, Shlomo Argov, by … Read more
The Invention of the Jewish People, by Shlomo Sand. London: Verso, 2009. 332 pp. This book has been promoted as “an international bestseller” that demolishes all previous connotations of the Jews as a people. Shlomo Sand approvingly quotes the French historian, Marcel Detienne, “How can we denationalise national histories?”— and this seems to be the … Read more
Simon Sebag-Montefiore, One Night in Winter (Century 2013) pp456 Several years ago, when I read Simon Sebag-Montefiore’s books on Stalin, I had approached them with preconceived notions about such ‘popular’ works. I quickly realised how wrong I was and literally could not put them down. Sebag’s new novel, based in part on real events … Read more
Menachem Begin was born 100 years ago this week in Brest-Litovsk, a town at the nexus of several east European cultures. It belonged to the newly independent Poland during his formative years and Begin absorbed its customs and manners. Begin’s formality contrasted dramatically with his couldn’t-care-less Labour opponents in later years. Although he came from … Read more