How One of Russia’s Leading Literary Figures Became One of Zionism’s Greatest Leaders

Dec. 15 2022

Born in the cosmopolitan city of Odessa, then in the Russian empire, in 1880, Vladimir Jabotinsky as a young adult had a promising career as an essayist, playwright, and literary critic—without any particular interest in Jewish affairs. That slowly changed as Jabotinsky was drawn to Zionism, and eventually founded and led the Revisionist movement, the ancestor of today’s Likud. As his biographer Hillel Halkin puts it, he was “a politician who did not want to be a politician.” Halkin discusses Jabotinsky’s life, his talents as an orator and translator, his critique of the Zionist left, and his fateful meetings in 1934 with David Ben-Gurion, who would soon thereafter become his greatest rival. (Interview by David Makovsky. Audio, 49 minutes.)

Read more at Decision Points

More about: David Ben-Gurion, History of Zionism, Vladimir Jabotinsky

Western Europe’s Failures Led to the Pogrom in Amsterdam

Nov. 11 2024

In 2013, Mosaic—then a brand-new publication—published an essay by the French intellectual Michel Gurfinkiel outlining the dark future that awaited European Jewry. It began with a quote from the leader of the Jewish community of Versailles: “My feeling is that our congregation will be gone within twenty or thirty years.” The reasons he, and Gurfinkiel, felt this way were on display in Amsterdam Thursday night. Michael Murphy writes:

For years, Holland and other European countries have invited vast numbers of people whose values and culture are often at odds with their own. This was a bold experiment made to appear less hazardous through rose-tinted spectacles. Europeans thought vainly that because we had largely set aside ethno-sectarian politics after the atrocities of the 20th century that others would do the same once they arrived. But they have not.

Perhaps the most unsettling part of this self-described “Jew hunt,” which left five people hospitalized, was the paltry response of the Dutch police. Reports suggest officers failed to act swiftly and, in some cases, to act at all. “I and two others ran to the nearest police station, but they didn’t open the door,” one of the victims claimed.

One hopes there is a reasonable explanation for this. Yet Amsterdam’s police force—with its increasingly diverse make-up—may have had other reasons for their reluctance to intervene. Last month, the Dutch Jewish Police Network warned that some officers “no longer want to protect Jewish targets or events,” vaguely citing “moral dilemmas.”

Read more at National Post

More about: Amsterdam, Anti-Semitism, European Islam, European Jewry