Many, many books have been written about the Holocaust and antisemitism. Amongst my favorites is Anthony Julius’s Trials of the Diaspora ( for an English slant) and David Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism from an American perspective. But when it comes to a broad and detailed analysis of antisemitism, and a profound knowledge of history, the late Robert Wistrich (April 7, 1945 – May 19, 2015) who was taken…
Author: Jeremy Rosen
Comfort Ye! Comfort Ye!
The Shabbat after the fast of the Ninth of Av, is called Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort. Its name comes from the 40th Chapter of the Biblical Prophet Isaiah and let us ignore the debate about how many Isaiahs there were. The first Chapter of the Book of Isaiah we read in the Haftarah last week foretold the awful catastrophe that would befall corrupt, hypocritical, immoral…
The Ninth of Av: Fasting and Self-flagellation.
Both Christianity and Islam have long and controversial traditions of penance that involve flogging oneself with whips or scourges that inflict pain. The doctrine of mortification till the blood flows was and, in some quarters, still is, seen as an important form of penance. The ritual goes back to Egyptian and Greco-Roman cults. In Christianity its origins lie in the teaching of the…
Who Was Peter Bergson
The anniversary of Hillel Kook’s death was this week. A Jewish Walter Mitty and a colorful, complex, dual personality also known as Peter Bergson. He was born in Lithuania in 1915. The son of Rabbi Dov Kook, the younger brother of the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Mandate Palestine, Abraham Isaac Kook. In 1924, his family moved to Palestine where his father…
Why Did We Go Wrong?
Why are we having difficulty coming to tems with this reality, the realization of how much we are hated ? As a student growing up in Britain I took part in demonstrations against racism, prejudice and fanaticism wherever it appeared in favor of tolerance and universality. A new era in which the post war hopes of building a brave new…
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) holds a very special place in Jewish historiography and mythology. It is true that there was, traditionally, antagonism towards ‘Greek Wisdom.’ He passed through the Land of Israel on his way to Egypt although Jerusalem was not on his route. And from there he went on to conquer Persia and got as far as India. He died in…