Review of In Search of Israel: The History of an Idea by Michael Brenner, published by Princeton University Press, pp. 372 The renowned sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman, a refugee from the anti-Semitic campaign in Communist Poland during the 1960s and subsequently a professor at the University of Leeds, popularised the term ‘allosemitism’. It depicted the ‘otherness’…
Review of Paul Bogdanor’s Kasztner’s Crime (Transaction 2016) pp. 323 Paul Bogdanor has penned a well-researched book on the contentious Kasztner affair – a controversy that commenced in wartime Hungary and has continued until the present day. In the summer of 1944, a minor Jewish figure, Rudolf Kasztner, negotiated with Adolf Eichmann in the…
Oswald Mosley instituted antisemitism as the official policy of the British Union of Fascists only in 1934, some two years after its formation. The annual report of the Board of Deputies for 1932 stated that Mosley had informed the Board that antisemitism formed “no part of the BUF’s policy”. Yet at a BUF meeting a…
”I have no doubts that Wallenberg was liquidated in 1947.” So noted the newly emerged diary of Ivan Serov, head of the KGB between 1954 and 1958 during the post-Stalinist thaw, regarding the fate of the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews in wartime Budapest. It seemed to confirm that Raoul Wallenberg had not…
‘For some people, life was split in two on June 22 1941, for some on September 3 1939 and for others on July 18 1936.’ So wrote the Soviet Jewish writer, Ilya Ehrenburg about the start of war against Nazi Germany. Ninety-nine year old Ubby Cowen in his nursing home in Golders Green remembers that…
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…
Many Labour Jews voted for Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London with a heavy heart. Khan’s past association with unsavoury Islamists who were not shy about peppering their views with anti-Semitic tropes undoubtedly jarred. Yet during the election campaign Khan went out of his way to court the Jewish community and instantly denounced the view…
The firefighters of Irish heritage during the 9/11 attack on New York were lauded for their courage and resilience. The tragedy drew public attention to the Irish tradition of serving in the New York City Fire Department – to save the lives of others at the risk of their own. It was important to commemorate…
In one pamphlet, the Sephardim of Bevis Marks express their relief in a special prayer that Queen Victoria had survived an assassination attempt at Constitution Hill in June 1840. Another is a declaration of fealty to the crown by the Portsmouth Jewish community when King George III visited the town in June 1773. Elsewhere, there…
Saved: Jews who had survived the Nazis in Europe were brought in huge ships to Britain to begin new lives Seventy years ago this week, on May 8 1945, many British Jews said the shehechayanu blessing to give thanks that they had survived to see that day. It was Victory in Europe Day, which marked…