The New Secretary of State and the American Jewish Family Saga

Pick
Jan. 27 2021
About Ruth

Ruth R. Wisse is professor emerita of Yiddish and comparative literatures at Harvard and a distinguished senior fellow at Tikvah. Her memoir Free as a Jew: a Personal Memoir of National Self-Liberation, chapters of which appeared in Mosaic in somewhat different form, is out from Wicked Son Press.

Yesterday, Congress confirmed Antony Blinken to the position of secretary of state. Ruth R. Wisse recalls how, nearly 40 years ago, she became acquainted with his grandfather, M.H. Blinken, who had read an article Wisse had written that mentioned his father, Meir Blinken (or Blinkin), “a Yiddish writer of short fiction, quite well known in New York in the 1910s.” M.H. had attempted to convince Wisse to produce a translation of some of Meir’s work—something “he needed . . . for his sons and grandchildren who would otherwise never understand where they came from.” Reflecting on four generations of Blinkens, Wisse is brought to mind of the short story “Four Generations, Four Wills” by the great Yiddish author Y.L. Peretz:

The patriarch Reb Eliezer leaves a Yiddish handwritten will, brief and judicious, taking for granted that his family will act in its spirit. His son Benjamin’s greater business success calls for a much longer formalized Yiddish document that spells out all his expectations of responsible succession that can no longer be assumed. His successor wills—in Polish—that a telegram should summon his only son from Paris and bequeaths a large sum to the Society for Assisting the Poor that is to feature the donor’s family name. Finally, the Parisian son writes an unsigned note taking his leave of the world.

How sharply this tale of deterioration contrasts with the Blinken saga, as though to highlight the difference between the Jewish experience in Poland and in America! Here the first generation was similarly followed by a son’s rise to wealth—but the subsequent generations rose ever higher in personal fulfilment and public service. As against Peretz’s version, Maurice Henry’s three sons . . . served in the military, married, and raised families, and under the Clinton administration, two of the brothers became U.S. ambassadors, Donald to Hungary, and Alan to Belgium. Now Donald’s son Antony, of the fourth generation, may he enjoy long years, has been nominated to be Joseph Biden’s secretary of state. How indeed has America proved to be the goldene medine, the golden land of Jewish immigrant dreams.

Yet is that how Peretz would have seen it, or M. H. himself? What about the golden chain of Jewish tradition? Was it just as a shelf showpiece that Maurice wanted his father’s stories translated, or did he hope that it would help his family to remain Jews? Does American success require the death of Jewishness, or does the Jewish story prove that religious freedom, ethnic pluralism, and democratic association inspire minorities to thrive?

Read more at Commentary

More about: American Jewish History, Antony Blinken, I.L. Peretz, Yiddish literature

 

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023