Forty years ago, as a member of a delegation to discuss the plight of Soviet Jewry, I met Margaret Thatcher prior to her 1987 visit to meet Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow – someone she said she “could do business with.” She was remarkably informed about the Soviet refuseniks – Ida Nudel, Vladimir Slepak, and Natan … Read more
38 LONDRES STREET: ON IMPUNITY, PINOCHET IN ENGLAND AND A NAZI IN PATAGONIA By Philippe Sands Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 480 pages; In the autumn of 1998, the former president of Chile Augusto Pinochet was awakened from his slumber by several British policemen as he lay in bed recovering from a back operation at … Read more
Fifteen years ago, Don Heathfield and his wife, Ann Foley, took their two sons out to an Indian restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to celebrate their son Tim’s 20th birthday. They returned home and continued the celebrations – only to be disturbed by loud knocking at the door. The visitors, dressed in black, snapped handcuffs on … Read more
Before the current crisis of the war in Gaza erupted, there had been four major clashes with Hamas, beginning with Operation Cast Lead in 2008 to Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021. While the media report the human face of the tragedies of war, the book The Hamas Intelligence War against Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2025) by Netanel … Read more
It has been said that the Weimar Republic of post-World War I Germany died twice. It was first murdered, and then committed suicide. This incisive comment refers to the moral, political, and economic decay of German society during the Great Depression – as well as to the politicians of various right-wing parties in Germany who … Read more
During the 1930s, Winston Churchill, cast out from the political establishment as an eccentric warmonger, earned his living through his writing. In 1937, he coined the phrase “making the weather” in his book Great Contemporaries about figures who changed history but never made it to the top. Churchill specifically directed his attention to Joseph Chamberlain, a … Read more
Iran has been in our eyes and ears throughout the last year. Its direct and open confrontation with Israel has marked a substantial change from the clandestine shadow war that has been ongoing since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Steven R. Ward’s book Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence: A Concise History provides the background to … Read more
Chaim Weizmann: A BiographyBy Jehuda Reinharz and Motti Golan Brandeis University Press (pp. 820) Chaim Weizmann was a remarkable man who truly deserved the accolade of “a founding father of Israel.”This majestic work by Jehuda Reinharz and Motti Golani, Chaim Weizmann: A Biography is as absorbing as it is comprehensive. Both authors have written about Weizmann for … Read more
Goodbye to Russia: A Personal Reckoning from the Ruins of War By Sarah Rainsford, published by Bloomsbury 2024, pp.357 7 October 2023 has become a day of remembrance. On the anniversary on that day in a few weeks, some Russians will also remember Anna Politkovskaya – ‘a journalist who did not lie’. She was gunned … Read more
Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich By Richard J. Evans, published by Allen Lane 2024, pp.598 Why did so many hitherto responsible citizens become fellow travellers in Hitler’s Germany? Why were ordinary people in their millions sucked into a whirlpool of deception? These are the questions that have been repeatedly asked since 1945. … Read more