Seventy years ago, in June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were electrocuted at Sing-Sing prison in New York — 15 minutes before Shabbat began out of respect for Jewish tradition. It is an anniversary that Jewish organisations in the Diaspora have chosen to ignore — and one that they may not wish to be reminded … Read more
In a few days, a meeting to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from Bulgarian-occupied Greece will take place at the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris. For many, this will be one minor tragedy amidst a multitude during the Holocaust. For some, the deportations may register momentarily about a country of … Read more
Amos Oz: The Legacy of a Writer in Israel and Beyond edited by Ranen-Omer-Sherman, published by the State University of New York press 2023, pp.414 Amos Oz once said that he had two pens on his desk — one to write stories, the other ‘to tell the government to go to hell’. Today his voice … Read more
One year ago, the world awoke to the news that war had broken out in Europe after almost 80 years of relative peace. British Jews were stunned by this turn of events — especially those whose ancestors had escaped Tsarist persecution in Ukraine. For Putin, the fall of the USSR in 1991 — like the … Read more
Israel’s Moment: International Support for and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945–1949. By Jeffrey Herf. (Cambridge University Press 2022). 500 pp. NAZIS AND COMMUNISTS AFTER 1945 The author of this highly informative book, Jeffrey Herf, is a distinguished researcher of prewar Nazi Germany and, through his numerous publications, the ties between nationalists and Islamists … Read more
The Holocaust: An Unfinished History By Dan Stone, published by Pelican 2023, pp. 402 On 26 November 1942, 532 Jews were rounded up in Oslo by Norwegian plainclothes policemen. They were taken in taxis to the local harbour, placed on the S.S. Donau which took them to Germany, from where they were taken by ‘freight … Read more
A visit to the Israel Cartoon Museum in Holon several years ago first gave me the idea of telling Israel’s history through cartoons. It was undoubtedly the hardest of all my books to write. Which episode in a year to highlight; which cartoon to select, which events to record? Clearly there could have been an … Read more
Last Friday, the Likud signed an agreement with the Kahanist party, Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), to give it an expanded range of responsibilities in the new government, covering the Public Security Ministry, the Development Ministry for the Negev and Galilee and a Jewish Heritage Ministry. It is likely that Itamar Ben-Gvir will now run the … Read more
When the result of the vote was announced, ‘a feeling that grips a man but once in his lifetime came upon us. High above us we seemed to hear the beating of the wings of history.’ So recalled David Horowitz, a member of the Jewish Agency delegation, on hearing the result of the historic vote … Read more
Bibi: My Story Benjamin Netanyahu Published by Threshold Editions, 2022, pp.726 When he was asked by a student in 2018, what is the most important subject to study for a political career, Benjamin Netanyahu replied that there were three answers: ‘History, history and more history’. In writing his own history during the Bennett-Lapid interregnum, dictated … Read more