At noon on December 11 1917, General Allenby dismounted and walked through the Jaffa Gate to take possession of Jerusalem from the defeated Turks on behalf of the British Crown. Five days later Naaman Belkind and Yosef Lishansky were hanged by the Turks in Damascus. They were members of the intelligence network of young Palestinian…
Why commemorate the Balfour Declaration? After all, some in Britain consider it to be ‘a historic mistake’. Others see it as the ultimate rebellion – the attempt of a small, persecuted people to return from the margins to the mainstream and thereby succeeding against all the odds. Many Jews believe that it was solely Judaism…
In a year of anniversaries which relate to the history of modern Israel, perhaps the centenary of the Balfour Declaration is the most significant. For those who resent the rise of a Hebrew republic in the Land of Israel, it represents a colossal historic mistake. It clearly upsets the ideological applecart, anchored in the belief…
This is a year of anniversaries. One hundred and twenty years since the first Zionist Congress. Fifty years since the victory in the Six Day war. Forty years since the election of Menahem Begin and the first right wing government in Israel – and many other lesser historical events. But perhaps most significantly it is…
Last Sunday Masha Slepak was buried in Jerusalem’s Har HaMenuchot cemetery alongside her husband, Vladimir. For virtually the entire duration of the Soviet Jewry campaign in the UK, they were the central figures among the Moscow refuseniks. For Jewish “tourists” to the USSR, their apartment on Moscow’s Gorky Street was a fixed destination. Masha’s name…
One hundred years ago in August 1917, the London Gazette published an official announcement that “a Jewish regiment” had been established. Based on the international regiments of small oppressed nations in Europe that had fought in foreign armies against great empires during the 19th century, it heralded the Israel Defence Force in 1948. Its formation marked the…
The Jewish Legion was five battalions formed during the course of World War I, made up mainly of Jewish soldiers. Originally created with the hope of fulfilling the desire for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the brigade was controversial and divided opinion. Following Turkey’s entry into the war in November 1914, the Sultan’s representative in…
One hundred and twenty years in August since Herzl opened the first Zionist congress in Basel. Seventy years in November since UN Resolution 181 was passed which proclaimed the partition of historic Palestine – one state for the Zionist Jews, the other for the Palestinian Arabs. Fifty years in June since Israel’s victory in the…
THE transformation of Szymon Perski from Vishnyeva in Belarus into Shimon Peres, a founding father of the state of Israel, is a reflection of how the Jews have moved from the margins of history to its mainstream after two millennia of dispersion and persecution. An urbane cultured man who spoke several languages and wrote poetry,…