75 years ago, Hitler sent a message to his representative in Copenhagen instructing him to rid Denmark of its 8,000-strong Jewish community. “The Jewish Campaign” was scheduled to begin on Rosh Hashanah 5704 — 1 October 1943. Danish Jews would be rounded up, incarcerated and “deported to the East”. Danish resistance to the German occupation…
Recent articles
Jeremy Corbyn as Peacemaker between Israel and Palestine
As the British Labour party conference opens Sunday in Liverpool, the charge of anti-Semitism is the elephant in the debating chamber. Many in the leadership simply want the problem to go away, so that they can prepare for government as the ruling Conservative party ritually performs hari-kari over Brexit. Whereas Jeremy Corbyn is seen by…
How British Jews greeted the end of World War I
At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the First World War came to an end. Among the vast number of casualties, it had cost the lives of 3,500 British Jews and 12,000 German Jews. It had uprooted millions, demolished great empires and destroyed the ordered worlds of so…
Peace Now
Forty years ago during the early summer of 1978, 348 reserve and non-commissioned officers signed an open letter to prime minister Menahem Begin. It stated that ‘a government that prefers the establishment of the State of Israel in the borders of a Greater Israel above the establishment of peace through good neighbourly relations instils in…
Speaking Truth to Power
Review of James Loeffler’s Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century; Yale University Press 384 pages; $32.50 The exponents of human rights can often be an irritant to those who hold office even in democratic lands. Those who speak “truth to power” in countries ruled by authoritarian figures often risk imprisonment or worse….
The Jewish Legion: One Hundred Years On
The idea of a Jewish Legion emerged out of the national legions – Belgian, Dutch, and German – that had defended the young French Republic after the Revolution of 1789, when it was threatened with invasion by the monarchies of Europe. Tens of thousands of Poles later served in Napoleon’s Grande Armée when it invaded…
Will the Jews leave Britain?
To what degree should U.K. Jews fear a Corbyn-led Labour government? The most recent wave of anti-Semitism accusations against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has once more brought into sharp relief the claim that British Jews will leave for safer countries. This comes after a survey published last year, covered widely by the right-wing British press,…
The Transition from Left to Right in Israel
INTRODUCTION Some Israelis privately bemoan the passing of the “Old Israel” whereby a new society—different from the ones from which they had emigrated—would be constructed. Nostalgia aside, today’s start-up nation proudly boasts innovation and entrepreneurship—values to be admired and emulated—yet the gap between the “haves” and “have nots” actually resembles that of western Europe. “Egalitarianism”…