Review of Karpov’s Brain by Gerald Green (Bantam 1984) 523pp. Gerald Green is perhaps best known as the author of the television drama Holocaust. This was viewed by 500 million people world-wide and certainly no one can dispute the educational value of such an exercise. Yet for many who viewed Holocaust from another level, its over-simplification … 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
The Board of Deputies of British Jews is a traditional animal. It is a creature of great longevity and the respectable backbone of Anglo-Jewry. It defends Jewish interests and is regarded by the outside world as the legitimate voice of the Jewish community. Despite its hard work and manifest good intentions, there is still … Read more
THE FIGURE OF Ilya Ehrenburg evokes passionate controversy. Some regard him as an opportunist and a sophisticated Stalinist hack. Others see him as an entrenched liberal, courageously but stealthily ordering the waves of reaction to retreat. Anyone who has witnessed and tried to comprehend the traumatic events of the twentieth century cannot ignore the miraculous … Read more
Refuseniks The Jews of Hope: The Plight of Soviet Jewry Today Martin Gilbert Macmillan £8.95 The Yugoslav dissident socialist, Milovan Djilas, once commented that since they are pervaded by the spirit of internationalism, the Jews are doomed to be persecuted whenever a regime isolates itself. Martin Gilbert’s book shows that this dictum remains unchanged. Under … 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
As we look out on the human condition, our consciences cannot be clean. If they are clean, then it is because we do not are them enough. It is not inevitable that we march in hostile and separate hosts into the common abyss. There is another possibility of an ordered world, illuminated by reason, governed … Read more
“507- this is the number of soldiers who have been killed in the war in Lebanon until now. THE PRICE HAS BEEN TOO HIGH.” UNTIL JUST the other day, this message on a small placard greeted all who passed by the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem. Every few days, the cardboard counter was moved around … Read more
Propaganda and Nationalism in Wartime Russia By Shimon Redlich (Columbia University Press, 1982, $26.00) NINETEEN EIGHTY THREE marks the fortieth anniversary of the visit of Solomon Mikhoels and Itsik Fefer to this country. The publication of Shimon Redlich’s book on the saga of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) is thus timely and important. In 1943, … Read more
The name of Raoul Wallenberg today evokes deep emotions in the hearts of many people. For those who know even the barest details of his courageous exploits in wartime Budapest, now some thirty eight years ago, he is held in almost reverential respect. Hasidei umot ha-olam – truly a Righteous Gentile. And yet only ten … Read more