Colin ShindlerAlthough returning participants may now try to paper over the cracks, the necessity to stage a solidarity conference was the clearest indication yet that Mr Shamir does not have full support for his policies in the diaspora and that loyal dissent is a serious obstacle. According to Ehud Olmert MK, co-ordinator of the conference on … Read more
AS ANGLO-JEWISH personalities fly out from London to attend the “Prime Minister’s Conference on Jewish Solidarity with Israel”, a group of prominent Jewish writers, academics. intellectuals and communal leaders has issued a statement which casts doubt on the value of their visit. Asking “which Jews today do not express solidarity with Israel?” they commented that ‘it seems increasingly likely that this is a … Read more
At the end of 1988, full page advertisements appeared in the national press in Britain which exhorted Jews to embrace Jesus Christ as the Messiah and effectively to convert to the Christian faith. The reaction of most Jews was initially one of astonishment that, in this day and age, large sums of money should be … Read more
At the end of last year, BBC 2’s “Timewatch” series screened a programme on the life and times of Nikolai Bukharin, a leading Bolshevik revolutionary and a central figure in the early Soviet state—in Lenin’s words “the favourite of us all”. 1988 marked both the fiftieth anniversary of his execution after a Stalinist show-trial and … Read more
Mandela was arrested in August 1962, formally for his work in Umkonto we Sizwe, the underground wing of the ANC whose activities were directed at sabotaging installations—often ineptly. Nearly a year later, the entire leadership of Umkonto we Sizwe were surprised by a police raid on the home of Arthur Goldreich in Rivonia near Johannesburg. … Read more
The result of the Israeli General Election was as uninspiring as the lacklustre campaign which preceded it. As many expected, it did not herald the *miraculous dawning of the Age of Reason. On the contrary, despite a soothing moderation emanating from some PLO leaders, the electoral outcome confirmed that the permafrost of suspicion and fear … Read more
When the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich died in the summer of 1975, The Times labelled him “one of the greatest twentieth century composers and a committed believer in Communism and Soviet power”. This was far from the truth. Although he never made ringing declarations against Stalinist terrors, Shostakovich quietly attempted to retain his independence of … Read more
It is not by chance that the Jewish Historical Museum of Amsterdam has chosen this year, the tercentenary of the Glorious Revolution, to hold an exhibition on the Lopes Suasso family; for, without them, stadholder William of Orange would not have crossed the Channel from the Low Countries to become King William III of Britain. … Read more
Is a Jewish education for children the basis of a Jewish commitment for adults? Many would passionately argue that the complexities of Jewish life and experience can be communicated and registered only by teaching them to the young. This, indeed, was the raison d’être of the Jewish day school movement in Britain. At its core … Read more
The recent exhibition commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Anschluss drew large crowds in London and Leeds. It reminded many a visitor that 1938 was a year filled with fateful events—Czechoslovakia, Kristallnacht, the Evian Conference. It was a year of foreboding and premonition—the last full year of peace before the Shoah. It was also the … Read more