In the winter of 1954, Jacob Sonntag edited a special issue of THE JEWISH QUARTERLY—number seven—which was devoted to an examination of the youthful State of Israel. Looking back at it, after nearly four decades, from the heights of our 150th issue, that passion for the Zionist experiment and the seemingly timeless freshness of statehood … Read more
An Interview with Gerald Kaufman MP 5 August 1992 CS: I believe that you apologized to your constituents shortly after Labour’s defeat in the 1992 elections for not being in a position to do more to help eradicate their poverty. GK: I didn’t apologize. What I said was that those of my constituents who were in a … Read more
Yitzhak Tabenkin was, together with David Ben-Gurion and Berl Katznelson, one of three who made the Labour-Zionist revolution in Palestine during the pre-State struggles in the inter-war period. Indeed, Ben-Gurion was said to have joined Poale Zion at Tabenkin’s home in Warsaw at the turn of the century. All were highly influenced by the Marxist-Zionist … Read more
Communism was deemed by its adherents to be eternal. Few could contemplate its decay and a final crumbling into the dust of ages. Its meaning was its existence. Most who lived under Communism accepted their lot, avoided trouble and got on with living their lives as best they could. Few possessed the courage and foresight … Read more
Since the Revolution, there have always been Soviet Jews wishing to repatriate to Israel. The trauma of the Holocaust spiritually created small groups of young assimilated Jews blindly searching for an explanation. The establishment of the state of Israel provided an interpretation and a visible goal. Such clandestine groups evolved with the political thaw that … Read more