JUDAICA Jewish Israel Palestine
Examines the development of Zionist thought, and its inherent link with the growth of antisemitism in the 19th century. Argues that while there were clearly other factors, antisemitism was a major element in the emergence of Zionism. Discusses the Zionist view of antisemitism as the result of the Jews’ anomolous social and economic structure in the diaspora. Notes the growth of Zionist youth movements in Germany as a reaction to antisemitic movements. Points out that the lack of help given to Jews during the Holocaust gave Zionism a great impetus at the end of the Second World War. However, it was also felt that the idea of a Jewish state had lost its “raison d’etre” as a haven for persecuted European Jews. Zionist leaders had anticipated persecutions and expulsions, but not mass murder as a solution to the “Jewish problem.” Discusses theories on antisemitism of major Zionist thinkers: Moses Hess, Max Lilienblum, Leo Pinsker, Max Nordau, Chaim Weizmann, and Ze’ev Jabotinsky.
Walter Louis Laqueur was born in Breslau, Germany on May 26, 1921. At the age of 17, he fled just a few days before Kristallnacht and found his way to Palestine, where he was known as Ze’ev. He worked briefly on a kibbutz before moving to Jerusalem, where he spent a year enrolled in the Hebrew University and covered the Middle East as a journalist. In 1955, he moved to London, where he was a founder and editor of The Journal of Contemporary History and a founder of Survey, a foreign affairs journal. From 1965 to 1994 he was director of the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, a leading archive in London. He became a scholar of the Holocaust, the collapse of the Soviet Union, European decline, the Middle East conflict, and global terrorism. He wrote numerous books including A History of Zionism, A History of Terrorism, The Terrible Secret, Putinism: Russia and Its Future with the West, and The Future of Terrorism: ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Alt-Right written with Christopher Wall. His memoirs included Thursday’s Child Has Far to Go; Worlds Ago; Best of Times, Worst of Times; and Reflections of a Veteran Pessimist. He was also the editor of The Holocaust Encyclopedia. He died on September 30, 2018 at the age of 97.
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