‘For some people, life was split in two on 22 June 1941, for some on 3 September 1939 and for others on 18 July 1936.’ So wrote Ilya Ehrenburg after the horrors of the Second World War, referring to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and to the declaration of war by Britain … Read more
STALIN’S APOSTLES: THE CAMBRIDGE FIVE AND THE MAKING OF THE SOVIET EMPIREBy Antonia SeniorPublished by PublicAffairs, 480 pages; $29 From the 1930s up until Stalin’s death in 1953, six million people were sent to the Soviet Gulag. A quarter did not survive. Another 16-17 million were transported to strict regime labor camps, where the death rate … Read more
David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have all resigned as prime minister of the United Kingdom since the Brexit Referendum in June 2016. These 10 years have been a period of profound instability and a rise in populism on both the Left and the Right. For British Jews, … Read more
A couple of weeks ago, there was an early morning fire near a major kosher supermarket in London’s Golders Green. Many feared that this was yet another assault on the Jewish community. It coincided with the breaking news that the pro-Iranian Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq had been behind 18 attacks in Europe. The group was … Read more
Last Saturday, 45-year-old Essa Suleiman was charged with attempting to murder two identifiably Jewish men on a rampage in Golders Green, a centre of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox life. Suleiman had been a patient at a London psychiatric clinic and earlier that day, attempted to knife a Muslim friend of 30 years. It was the latest … Read more
Ian Buruma has written many fine works of nonfiction, which include books about Spinoza and Churchill. But his book Stay Alive: Berlin 1939-1945 is personal. It is a story of anti-Nazi Germans, mischlings (people of non-Aryan origin), and the odyssey and observations of Buruma’s own father, Leo, who was sent from Holland to work in Germany … Read more
During the last couple of weeks, President Trump’s helter-skelter ride – from Minneapolis to Venezuela, from Iran to Greenland – has transfixed onlookers around the world. White House acolytes have genuflected amidst a standing ovation on his every word. Europeans have wrung their hands in silence and hoped for a parallel universe. Many concerned Diaspora … Read more
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
A couple of weeks ago, the British far Right anti-immigration activist, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson, spoke at a large Tel Aviv social gathering, one ostensibly dedicated to hearing all points of view. He had been invited to Israel by the Minister for the Diaspora, Amiḥai Chikli, who has had several public rows with the … Read more
In a few weeks, on Rosh Hashanah, Jews worldwide will pray for the good of humanity in the Jewish year to come, 5786. An end to war and to hunger, an end to injustice and to persecution – a year of peace and a personal resolve to do better. Jews will also pray for their … Read more