Every year the Ninth of Av ( this year on Sunday) raises the issue of the Holocaust. We commemorate the destruction of two Jewish states, of two Jewish temples , of Jerusalem twice, and the Ninth of Av is the only fast after Yom Kippur that starts the evening before and runs through for 25 hours. It represents the two greatest…
Author: Jeremy Rosen
Sir Thomas More
I was always interested in history. And having been brought up in England, specifically English history. One of the most significant eras in English history was the 16th century. After years of disastrous infighting in the Wars of the Roses, Henry 7th and then Henry 8th began to stabilize English society and lay the foundations for the empire that was…
Fasting
In The Economist of June 20th, there was an interesting article under the heading “Do longevity drugs work.” The subtitle was that animal studies suggest that certain drugs are no more effective than long-term fasting. The article was comparing a series of pharmaceutical drugs that are being touted as guaranteeing longevity. “As elixirs of life go, long-term fasting is the surprising candidate. Yet…
Is Peace Possible?
For the past two years I’ve been conflicted, even close to despair over whether real peace is ever possible in Israel, and under what conditions. The existential evil that Hamas and indeed Iran and its proxies represent has been devastating. And the almost universal betrayal of Israel by hierarchies, leaders, intellectuals and journalists incomprehensible. At the same time the debate…
Why Pig is Not kosher.
Edward Gibbon the English historian (1737 to 1794) wrote six volumes of The History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. His conclusions have been disputed ever since. But he ushered in a new era of historical and social theory that has dominated western thought ever since. We like to find simple easy explanations which never work out exactly…
Yalta
Anyone interested in history will know that the Yalta Conference was a meeting between the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union that took place in February 1945 towards the end of the Second World War. There is a famous photograph of Roosevelt and Stalin sitting next to an unhappy Winston Churchill who realized he was being marginalized. As…