Last Shabbat, the prayer for the state of Israel was recited in the main Havana synagogue. It was also the day when the announcement was made of the passing of Fidel Castro, who had broken off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973. This symbolised Fidel’s individualistic approach towards Jews and Israel while remaining a … Read more
Review of Paul Bogdanor’s Kasztner’s Crime (Transaction 2016) pp. 323 Paul Bogdanor has penned a well-researched book on the contentious Kasztner affair – a controversy that commenced in wartime Hungary and has continued until the present day. In the summer of 1944, a minor Jewish figure, Rudolf Kasztner, negotiated with Adolf Eichmann in the … Read more
“The Egyptian has his thumb on our windpipe”. So muttered Prime Minister Anthony Eden in July 1956 on hearing that President Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalised the Suez Canal. It led to a clandestine agreement with then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion for a joint military intervention – and Israel’s subsequent move into Sinai … Read more
MORE THAN anything, it was the abandoned shoes of the Holocaust that spoke most vividly to artist Jenny Stolzenberg about the suffering of concentration camp victims. Walking boots, high heeled shoes and baby bootees were turned into an art installation that reflected the full horror and pathos of those murdered by the Nazis. But Stolzenberg, … Read more
Oswald Mosley instituted antisemitism as the official policy of the British Union of Fascists only in 1934, some two years after its formation. The annual report of the Board of Deputies for 1932 stated that Mosley had informed the Board that antisemitism formed “no part of the BUF’s policy”. Yet at a BUF meeting a … Read more
THE transformation of Szymon Perski from Vishnyeva in Belarus into Shimon Peres, a founding father of the state of Israel, is a reflection of how the Jews have moved from the margins of history to its mainstream after two millennia of dispersion and persecution. An urbane cultured man who spoke several languages and wrote poetry, … Read more
Review of Dave Rich’s The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism (Biteback 2016) pp.292 Dave Rich has written an insightful overview of the troubled relationship between Jews and the British Left. The Left’s Jewish Problem traces the tortuous path trodden by the far Left during past decades – from the 1968 student revolts to the messianism of the Corbynistas today. Zionism … Read more
The political career of Shimon Peres lasted almost as long as a normal lifetime – three score and ten years. The secret of such longevity was his ability to adapt to the political reality – as he saw it – and not to be hidebound by ideological principles. He learned this at the knee of … Read more
Review of Avi Shilon’s Ben-Gurion: His Later Years in the Political Wilderness (Rowman and Littlefield 2016) pp.245 This latest work from Avi Shilon describes in detail Ben-Gurion’s last decade – from stepping down as prime minister in June 1963 until his death in December 1973. They were not glorious years and were peppered by … Read more
Review of Where the Jews Aren’t by Masha Gessen (Schoken 2016) pp.171. When should the Jews leave and when should they stay put? This is the general question which the gay, Jewish, American-Russian writer Masha Gessen asks about her own life. She was beaten in primary school, ostracized at secondary school and barred from university in the USSR because of her Jewishness. Her … Read more