Hear, O Friends of Israel

In 1987, exactly a quarter-century ago, the appearance of a work of Jewish history caused a stir. For one thing, the author was not Jewish; for another, the book was unashamedly supportive of the State of Israel, which even then was enough to provoke hostility, especially on the Left.

The Miracle  Paul Johnson,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  The creation of Israel was the quintessential event of the last century, and the only one that can fairly be called a miracle.  SAVE

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Trotsky Eats and Runs

I first heard the name Trotsky when I was seven years old. My grandfather, a Jewish tailor from Belarus who arrived in the goldene medine and pulled himself up by his bootstraps to own a men's suit factory in New York, had just gotten a swept-back haircut. He called it a Trotsky.

Abraham Cahan, American Author  D.G. Myers,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Abe Cahan, Trotsky's benefactor, was not just an editor but the author of an important American novel.  SAVE

Trotsky the Jew  Richard Pipes,  Tablet.  Attempts to treat Trotsky as an "eminent Jewish figure" must glide over the more savage features of his thought and behavior.  SAVE

Trotsky's Jewish Question  Robert S. Wistrich,  Forward.  Although Trotsky abandoned Judaism and was actively hostile to Zionism, he was one of the first to warn of the threat to the Jews posed by Nazi Germany.  SAVE

Lenin's Bad Blood  Ruth R. Wisse,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Lenin's great-grandfather was a shtetl Jew who married a Christian, then denounced Jews to the tsar. Perhaps violent paranoia ran in the family.  SAVE

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2011: A Year in Books

The holidays are over, the coffee-table books have all been unwrapped and set aside, and winter isn't going anywhere for a while. In short, it's time to settle in for some good reading. The literary critic D. G. Myers here presents the 38 best Jewish books of 2011, all of which merit your attention.

2010: A Year in Books  D.G. Myers,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  From the popular to the scholarly, a reader's and buyer's guide to 34 of the best books of 2010.  SAVE

Retrieving American Jewish Fiction  D.G. Myers,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  A historical symposium of some neglected classics, and an introduction to the avot and imahot of American Jewish writing.  SAVE

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Highlights of 2011:
Part II

Part II of our round-up of the past year's most popular features on Jewish Ideas Daily. (Part I is here.)

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Part II"

Arriving from Moscow.

The Russian Wave

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, some one million Jews have come to Israel from the former Soviet Union (FSU), enlarging the country's population by 25 percent and forming the largest concentration in the world of Russian Jews.  They have left their mark in almost every walk of life. And yet, as a group, they are still something of a mystery.

Looking Back  Maya Kaganskaya,  Eretz Acheret.  A member of the earlier, 1970s generation of Soviet Jewish activists testifies: Israel did not absorb me; I absorbed and took it into myself.  SAVE

The “Russians”: A Guide  Dan Shapira,  Eretz Acheret.  Different among themselves, different from Israelis, the one million immigrants from the FSU have slowly, haltingly, but naturally become another broad band of color in the Israeli mosaic.  SAVE

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