Raising funds for Israel has always occupied a prominent if segregated role in Diaspora communities. In the United States, some $400 million dollars is allocated each year to the Jewish Agency-World Zionist Organization by the United Jewish Appeal (UJA). In recent years, there has been a slow but discernible change in aims and objectives contrasting … Read more
THE forthcoming Jewish New Year, 5748, falls appropriately between two other days of celebration—the twentieth anniversary of the Israeli victory in the Six Day War and the fortieth Yom Ha’atzmaut next summer. And indeed, in contrast to the tumultuous and divisive Begin years, the present is a sea of tranquillity. Inflation has dropped from 450 … Read more
Israel’s involvement in nuclear weaponry, whilst recognized for many years, has certainly been brought to the fore by the Vanunu affair. Yet even before Vanunu’s act of apparent treachery, a small but growing number of Israeli citizens had pressed apprehension at the intention of the government to use nuclear energy for generating electricity. Since 1981, … Read more
“War is Peace” —George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four THE recent expulsion of the head of Syrian intelligence in Britain is an indication of the concerted effort to thwart attacks on Jewish and Israeli institutions in this country. At the Tokyo summit, it was decided to take specific measures and to improve coordination in an … Read more
IN the midst of Shimon Peres’s triumphant visit to London, Israel announced that she had agreed to participate in Mr Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative—Star Wars. In March 1985, Israel was invited to detail—in Mr Caspar Weinberger’s words—”the areas of your country’s research excellence that you deem most promising for this programme”. Since it has taken … Read more
The election of Meir Kahane to the Knesset sent shock waves through Israel and the Diaspora. At the time, public relations pundits in Britain dismissed it as more or less a freak result. It was not regarded as part of a prevalent trend toward irrational policies in Israel. A year later, several opinion polls suggest … Read more
EARLY ONE hundred years ago, the progenitor of cultural Zionism, Ahad Ha’am visited the Land of Israel for the first time. 0n his return, he wrote an acerbic article in Hamelitz, the St Petersburg Hebrew daily. Although his central theme was his castigation of the Hovevei Zion settlers for unethical financial practice, he also registered … Read more
Sharon: an Israeli Caesar by Uzi Benziman, published by Robson Books, 276 pp, £12.95 Anyone with, what might be termed “a liberal conscience” always tries to locate the good, those small islands of common humanity, in the views and actions of an opponent. However, by the time I had passed page 200, with the war … Read more
Israel’s Lebanon War. By Zeev Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari. Allen & Unwin 12.95. As Israel, in the midst of renewed conflict and violence, painfully attempts to disengage itself from the Lebanese maelstrom, the publication of this book is ironically timely. Written by two of Israel’s leading journalists, it is an objective description of how democratic … Read more
“If Only My People: Zionism in My life”‘ by Immanuel Jakobovits published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson The title ‘Rabbi’ is conventionally understood to be the Hebrew translation for teacher. Yet originally rabbis were expounders and interpreters of Judaism. Their role became institutionalised in the Middle Ages through absorbing a necessary teaching function as spiritual heads … Read more