In this well-researched and insightful book, British biographer Caroline Moorehead traces the transition of Italy’s pre-1914 liberalism to Mussolini’s Fascist utopia through the beliefs and actions of the Rosselli family and its matriarch, Amelia Pincherle. A Bold and Dangerous Family: One Family’s Fight against Italian Fascism, tells the story of a family who was proud … Read more
For me, Israel is at the forefront of Jewish history. The state is the inheritor of the French revolutionary tradition and nineteenth century European liberal nationalism. As someone who was embedded in the political causes of the 1960s, the Six Day war in 1967 was a watershed. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 propelled … Read more
The fact that no state in western Europe could ensure the elementary rights of the Jewish people or defend them from the violence of the Fascist executioners, explains the aspiration of the Jews to set up a state of their own. It would be unjust if we were to reject the right of the Jewish … Read more
Fifty years ago, Rabbi Haim Druckman rose to his feet in the Park Hotel in Hebron, greeted more than 60 guests and proceeded to lead the Pesach Seder. The Arab owners of the hotel were told that their visitors were Swiss tourists. The hotel kitchen was koshered and the mezuzot affixed. Moshe Levinger even brought … Read more
In conversation with Ned Temko at Jewish Book Week 2018. https://vimeo.com/261457712
The nerve agent attack in Salisbury — synthesised at the Skhikany Institute in the city of Volsk, by the river Volga, in 1973 — continues a century long tradition. Last June, Vladimir Putin gave an address to mark the founding of the illegal intelligence service in 1922. He read out a roll-call of legendary Soviet … Read more
Next week the Glasgow Film Festival will close with a showing of Nae Pasaran! (They Shall Not Pass!) which tells the story of how engineers at the Rolls-Royce East Kilbride factory in 1974 refused to repair aircraft engines that belonged to the Chilean armed forces. Led by General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean air force, flying … Read more
29 November 1947 On 29 November 1947 the member states of the United Nations – almost a quarter of the current membership – voted for the partition of Palestine into two states. Jerusalem was to be internationalised. The Arab state was 99% Arab while the population of the Jewish state was 55% Jews 45% Arab … Read more
During his first tenure as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu was dubbed “the magician” by the local media because of his uncanny ability to extricate himself from the most difficult of situations – starting with his unexpected victory over Shimon Peres in the 1996 election. Mr Netanyahu’s luck – or expertise – may have run … Read more
Five years ago, Jeremy Corbyn was an obscure member of the British Parliament — someone on the far fringes of the Labour Party who was seen as less likely to attain power than Donald Trump was in the United States. With Labour’s defeat in the 2015 general election, Corbyn scrambled to obtain the necessary votes … Read more