Why have Jews always been involved disproportionately in the social activism of the times? Clearly a central reason must be the inheritance of historical memory; after the Shoah, all Jews are survivors. This was the reason why many Jews were shocked by Ken Livingstone’s inaccurate remarks that Hitler supported Zionism. That it emerged from a Labour man—whose party which has celebrated difference…
Jeremy Corbyn’s latest gaffe — in inadvertently comparing Israel with ISIS — diverted attention away from the Chakrabarti Inquiry’s findings into anti-Semitism in Britain’s Labour party. This not only distracted the public gaze away from Shami Chakrabarti’s determined attempt to plough a rational course through the minefield of defining anti-Semitic innuendo, but also concealed the…
Socialism of Fools: Capitalism and Modern Anti-Semitism (Columbia University Press 2016) pp.321 by Michele Battini The Italian academic, Michele Battini examines the gradual transformation of the traditional Christian anti-Semitic charge of usury into modern anti-Jewish anti-capitalism. Fuelled by the economic transformation in the nineteenth century and the self-regulated market, anti-Jewish anti-capitalism emerged…
Left out: The rise of the Israeli right June 2016
Review of Asaf Sinaver’s Abba Eban: A Biography (London 2016) 464pp. Duckworth Overlook. £25 Abba Eban (1915–2002), who served as Israel’s Foreign Minister between 1966 and 1974, was regarded by many in the international community as Talleyrand’s heir. In Israel, by contrast, he was derided for his Jewish liberalism and quintessentially English intellectual approach to diplomacy. The Labour Prime Minister Levi Eshkol…
Ephraim Katzir was born in Kiev on 16 May 1916. His father, Yehuda Katchalski, was an accountant and an adherent of Zionism. Katchalski and his wife, Tsila, originally lived in Łódź, then in the Tsarist empire, now in Poland. Łódź was a centre of socialist politics and radical endeavour. During the 1905 revolution an uprising…
It is often stated that there is an ongoing delegitimisation of Israel. What is rarely mentioned is that there has been a parallel delegitimisation of Zionism – an ideological demonisation by those who are often ignorant of its history and evolution. Such ignorance is the underpinning which allows legitimate criticism to occasionally tip over into…
Briefing Paper: Labour Party Inquiry on Anti-Semitism Who am I? I am an emeritus professor at SOAS, University of London. My book, Israel and the European Left was published in 2011 and I have long been interested in this area. I have therefore written this briefing paper which traces the road which has led to…
The Black Door:Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers By Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac Collins, £30 British prime ministers have never been neutral towards the intelligence services. Intelligence historians Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac have written an accessible book, indicating how different premiers reacted to intelligence reports - and often bypassed their own…
In May 1926, a Jewish watchmaker approached a middle-aged man sporting a cane and attending his favourite restaurant in the Rue Racine in Paris. The watchmaker asked the man his name and, after hearing the response, pumped five bullets into him, adding two more as he lay dying on the pavement. The dead man was…