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Sidney Hook
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To the Editor:
Sidney Hook’s fascinating interview with Norman Podhoretz, “On Being a Jew” [October 1989], raises an important issue that deserves comment.
Both in his autobiography, Out of Step (1987), and in his interview . . . , Sidney Hook confessed his error at having long denied the national aspirations of but one persecuted people—his own. It was the Holocaust and the rebirth of the state of Israel which proved to be watersheds in his acceptance of Zionism, though with a particular emphasis. In linking these two events he arrived at the same position held by many Israeli Jews also until the Six-Day War—namely, that only the Zionist commonwealth allowed its citizens to build a life of dignity as Jews, . . . in sharp contrast to the docile resignation of past generations.
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