At Jewish Book Week 2018
In conversation with Ned Temko at Jewish Book Week 2018. https://vimeo.com/261457712
Year: 2018
Putin and Poisons: A History
The nerve agent attack in Salisbury — synthesised at the Skhikany Institute in the city of Volsk, by the river Volga, in 1973 — continues a century long tradition. Last June, Vladimir Putin gave an address to mark the founding of the illegal intelligence service in 1922. He read out a roll-call of legendary Soviet … Read more
Pinochet and the Jews
Next week the Glasgow Film Festival will close with a showing of Nae Pasaran! (They Shall Not Pass!) which tells the story of how engineers at the Rolls-Royce East Kilbride factory in 1974 refused to repair aircraft engines that belonged to the Chilean armed forces. Led by General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean air force, flying … Read more
1948: What Happened, When and Why
29 November 1947 On 29 November 1947 the member states of the United Nations – almost a quarter of the current membership – voted for the partition of Palestine into two states. Jerusalem was to be internationalised. The Arab state was 99% Arab while the population of the Jewish state was 55% Jews 45% Arab … Read more
What You Did Not Tell
Review of Mark Mazower’s What You Did Not Tell: A Russian Past and the Journey Home (Other Press 2017) pp. 400 Mark Mazower’s latest book, What You Did Not Tell: A Russian Past and the Journey Home, is a descriptive voyage of his family’s journey. Mazower’s discoveries are made all the more interesting because … Read more
Netanyahu and Corruption
During his first tenure as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu was dubbed “the magician” by the local media because of his uncanny ability to extricate himself from the most difficult of situations - starting with his unexpected victory over Shimon Peres in the 1996 election. Mr Netanyahu’s luck - or expertise - may have run … Read more
Jews and Leftist Politics
Review of Jews and Leftist Politics: Judaism, Israel, Anti-Semitism and Gender ed. Jack Jacobs (Cambridge 2017) pp.374 This important book is based on an international conference on Jews and the Left held in New York in 2012. As the subtitle denotes, the chapters explore questions of religion, Zionism, anti-Semitism, Marxism and Soviet Communism and contain some remarkable … Read more
Jeremy Corbyn’s Foreign Policy Vision
Five years ago, Jeremy Corbyn was an obscure member of the British Parliament — someone on the far fringes of the Labour Party who was seen as less likely to attain power than Donald Trump was in the United States. With Labour’s defeat in the 2015 general election, Corbyn scrambled to obtain the necessary votes … Read more
Remembering Barry Davis
Obituary: Barry Davis The actor and Yiddish scholar Barry Davis was “a Hackney boy” — from beginning to end. It was his cultural milieu, a location to be embraced in all its intellectual richness. In 1991, he interviewed Harold Pinter. Instead of a detailed excursion into contemporary literature, these two old Grocers’ Company schoolboys (Hackney … Read more
Enemies and Neighbours
Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel 1917-2017 Ian Black, published by Allen Lane 2017) pp. 640 Ian Black, a longtime Guardian journalist, sees Yasser Arafat’s appearance at the UN in 1974 as the “apogee of his 40-year leadership.” It’s a curious notation in his latest book, Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs … Read more