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One of the inescapable facts of modern Jewish life is that the destruction of European Jewry by the Germans in World War II led to no sea change in the ethos and mores of the Jewish people as a whole. It is now time to begin taking stock of the consequences for Jewry of the all-but-total elimination of what was unquestionably its heartland.
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January 1990 |
David Vital |
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We--my parents, my sister, and I--were in London in the 1920's. Why? And why, then, did we leave? A proper answer to either question would have at least as much to
do with large political events as with any of us
as individuals.
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May 1989 |
David Vital |
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One of the small signs suggesting that Jews are at last beginning to be able to deal with the recent history of their people with relatively cool heads is the change that has come over the reputation of certain major figures in it.
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September 1987 |
Reviewed by David Vital |
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There is something to be said for George Eliot's dictum that "the happiest nations have no history." One way or another, the Jews are a people encumbered by their past: the past as history, the past as tradition.
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May 1984 |
Reviewed by David Vital |
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One of the central difficulties about Zionism is that there is no agreement about its content or nature or ultimate purposes. One man's Zionism need not be-indeed, rarely is-another's.
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April 1982 |
Reviewed by David Vital |
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There are at least two good reasons for extracting this book from the great pile of new college textbooks that accumulates each year. One stems from the trend in higher education which it exemplifies and which it is intended to serve.
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March 1981 |
Reviewed by David Vital |
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The theme of this book-albeit unspoken-is guilt. But not the immeasurable guilt of the principals.
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February 1980 |
Reviewed by David Vital |
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The triumph of 1948 turned Zionism-and Zion-from an affair of a distinct minority of Jews to the concern of all.
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June 1974 |
Reviewed by David Vital |
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David Ben-Gurion was dying before the fighting had stopped, and there were few in Israel-at any rate among the older half of the population-who failed to comment that his death marked the end of an epoch with almost sublime precision. What kind of epoch it was in contrast to the one that had now begun it is still much too early to say. But the contrast may come to appear a sharp one.
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March 1974 |
David Vital |
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It is appropriate to speak of the advent of Theodor Herzl. He was the hero of the Zionist movement-its only hero. So he was seen by its members and its adepts; and so he saw himself.
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May 1973 |
David Vital |
