At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the First World War came to an end. Among the vast number of casualties, it had cost the lives of 3,500 British Jews and 12,000 German Jews. It had uprooted millions, demolished great empires and destroyed the ordered worlds of so … Read more
Review of James Loeffler’s Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century; Yale University Press 384 pages; $32.50 The exponents of human rights can often be an irritant to those who hold office even in democratic lands. Those who speak “truth to power” in countries ruled by authoritarian figures often risk imprisonment or worse. … Read more
When the US moved its embassy to Jerusalem last month, Paraguay was quick to follow suit — much to the delight of the Israeli government. At an effusive ceremony in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the Paraguayan president for taking in Holocaust survivors, while President Rivlin said that Paraguay had been a true friend … Read more
Fifty years ago, the student revolt broke out on campuses all over western Europe. The revolutionary fervour of the times spawned a generation who believed that a better world was possible if only we dedicated ourselves. In Communist Eastern Europe there were student demonstrations against state-sponsored anti-Semitism. There were occupations and sit-ins at LSE, Leicester … Read more
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
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
Last week, the remains of King Victor Emanuel III were brought back from exile in Egypt to Italy by an official air force aircraft — and then quietly reinterred in the burial plot for members of the House of Savoy. The Italian Jewish community strongly condemned this, because the king had not only been a … Read more
Two recent UK election campaign moments provide a window into the electoral dilemma of many British Jews: should they maintain their lifelong allegiance to the Labour party – or not? The first, earlier this week, concerns a BBC radio interview conducted by journalist Emma Barnett with Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party. … 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
”I have no doubts that Wallenberg was liquidated in 1947.” So noted the newly emerged diary of Ivan Serov, head of the KGB between 1954 and 1958 during the post-Stalinist thaw, regarding the fate of the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews in wartime Budapest. It seemed to confirm that Raoul Wallenberg had not … Read more