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| 1 |
ID:
154270
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| Summary/Abstract |
Makers of Jewish Modernity is an ambitious, intriguing and occasionally useful volume. While the book is a somewhat impressive and even compelling venture, it is also disturbing. The editors describe their work as a collection of “original portraits of thinkers, writers, artists, and leaders who founded, formed, and transformed the Twentieth Century and laid down intellectual, cultural and political foundations ahead of us. […] Modern Jewish experience forms a dimension of our post-Enlightenment world.” (1) Contrary to what its title conveys, this book is not about “Jewish modernity” as such, but about Jewish modernity insofar as it is a “dimension” of the contemporary world at large. Perhaps this explains the fact that, with the exception of the literary critic Jacques Derrida, Makers of Jewish Modernity does not include a single “thinker, writer, artist and leader” who is a “Mizrahi” (Middle Eastern or Sephardic) Jew. Moreover, although Derrida was born in Algeria, his thought and writings appear to be largely “Ashkenazified” (European). While Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein certainly are among the founders of the “post-Enlightenment world,” it is not clear that the same applies to the founder of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl; the historian Simon Dubnow; Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook; Hebrew poet, Dahlia Ravikovitch; scientist and thinker, Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz; or Hebrew poet, Natan Alterman, – all of whom appear in this volume.
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| 2 |
ID:
154269
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| 3 |
ID:
154267
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| Summary/Abstract |
During the spring of 2016, the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, claimed that Adolf Hitler had supported Zionism in the 1930s. When this claim was discredited, he refused to apologize and claimed that Hitler was a supporter of Zionism “before he went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews.” Supporting this assertion, Livingstone cited a book by the Trotskyite writer, Lenni Brenner. A review of the published scholarship and original German government documents show the intensity of Nazi hostility toward the establishment of a Jewish state. Archival evidence reveals that as a means of striking out against Zionism, the Luftwaffe even considered bombing Jerusalem on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
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| 4 |
ID:
154274
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| Summary/Abstract |
On March 29, 2017, the blog of the National Library of Israel announced the discovery of SS Commander Heinrich Himmler’s telegram to Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem.1 Although the telegram was not dated, there is conclusive evidence that it was sent on November 2, 1943, the twenty-sixth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. While the existence of this telegram and its contents were known, the original telegram seemed to have been lost. According to Mr. Chen Malul, a contributing editor of the National Library’s blog, this document was donated to the National Library in 1952, some sixty-five years ago. Several months ago, the archivists of the library classified the telegram as pertaining to the Balfour Declaration. With the approach of the Declaration’s centennial, the Library carried out a search by keyword and discovered this document.2
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| 5 |
ID:
154272
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| Summary/Abstract |
It is unusual to find the words “revival” and “British Jewry” in the same sentence. Several decades ago, the title of this paper would have come as a surprise to the many critics of British Jewry. For example, in 1989, Professor Daniel Elazar observed that “the powers that be in British Jewry are content with the status quo and do not seek change.” Author Steven Brook (1990) scathingly remarked that the leadership of British Jewry “revels in its mediocrity, shallowness and philistinism.” And, in 1996, in the conclusion of his study, entitled Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews of Europe Since 1945, Professor Bernard Wasserstein stated that the Jews of Britain are “slowly but surely … fading away. Soon nothing will be left but a disembodied memory.”
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| 6 |
ID:
154273
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| Summary/Abstract |
Resolution 2334 in effect prejudges the outcome of negotiations on the crucial topics of borders, Jerusalem, and settlements. It does so in favor of the Palestinians, thereby circumventing and undermining the Oslo peace process that former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry professed to protect and foster. The resolution rewards Palestinians for violating their commitment to negotiate directly with Israel and teaches them the (false) lesson that they can unilaterally impose their preferred outcome on Israel through international pressure. Therefore, Resolution 2334 removes the incentive for the Palestinians to return to bilateral negotiations with Israel.
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