My Review of Matti Friedman's "Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe"

 Parachuting into Statehood

While reading Matti Friedman’s wonderful new book, I was reminded of my trip to Prague where I visited the memorial for the dead Czech paratroopers who were gunned down in a Prague Church. (See: https://destinationwwii.com/operation-anthropoid-memorial/ee:) Their mission organized in 1942 by the British under the name Operation Anthropoid succeeded in assassinating Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher of Prague and an architect of the Holocaust. To me, this is Friedman’s best book and I reviewed several of his works before. (See for example: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2022/05/my-amazon-review-of-matti-friedmans-who.html )

 

Here we are told the story of another British mission to send newly trained paratroopers into occupied Europe in 1944. The British in cooperation with the Hagenah recruit 32 Jewish citizens of their Palestine Mandate, whose mission was to help downed pilots evade and escape from the Nazi’s. They were chosen because of their language skills and their knowledge of the countries they were to be dropped into. All of them recently escaped from Nazi Europe and now they are choosing to go back into the hell they left.

 

However, the Hagenah has a different mission. That mission is help organize Jewish resistance to the Nazi occupation and to also, if possible, to get them out of Europe. Indeed, the paratroopers are fighting for a state that does not yet exist. The mission has the high-level involvement of the leading figures in the Jewish state in waiting, including its first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion.

 

Of the 32 recruits most die or are captured. Friedman tells the stories of four of them. Haim Hermesh 24, known as the scythe, airdrops into Yugoslavia enroute to Hungary. He like all of them he flies from Cairo to Beri, Italy where he is then parachutes in. He survives. Enzo Sereni, the group leader and a father of three drops into northern Italy. Marta Reick 30, known as Haviva drops into Slovakia where she becomes and important figure in the resistance. Indeed, Freidman takes you into the forests and clearings where the paratroopers landed and their interaction with the local partisans. One thing I did not know, was that for a time the resistance actually controlled a small amount of territory before being overrun by the German army.

 

The most famous of the four was Hannah Senesh 22, the author of the lyrics to “Eli, Eli.” She is the daughter of a famous Hungarian playwright and leaves an extraordinary paper trail. She was captured in Budapest and was killed in prison a few months before the arrival of the Red Army. Her mother was in the same prison with her for awhile and is ultimately freed and ends up in Israel.

 

We also learn from Friedman that the Nazi’s had a good understanding of the operation. Both the Hagenah and the U.S. OSS availed themselves of the services of a double agent in Istanbul. A monumental intelligence failure that put the entire operation at risk.

 

Although from a strict tactical sense the mission of the paratroopers ended up as a failure, in a broader sense the mission succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its promoters. Their lives become the legends that gave inspiration to the new State of Israel.

 

In order to write the book Friedman researched the Hagenah archives loaded with musty boxes, found unpublished letters from relatives of the paratroopers, and discovered long out of print books. He also visited all of the drop zones of his four protagonists and followed the trail from there. It was a three-year effort, and it paid off in a hell of a good story.   

My Review of Amit Segal's "A Call at 4 AM"

 A Primer on Israeli Politics

Leading Israeli reporter Amit Segal has written a primer on Israeli politics going back to the State’s founding. I would characterize his views as center-right. However, a long time Israeli friend and former reporter would argue that Segal is firmly on the Right. In the beginning Israel created a parliamentary system consisting of 120 delegates to the Knesset who would be elected via a party slate by proportional representation, not by constituency. In 1948 with the new state’s boundaries up for grabs, it wasn’t really possible to create individual districts. You would think that accountability would flow through the political parties, but, in fact, the party leaders became personality cults starting with David Ben Gurion. It seems that once in power prime ministers never know when to quit. Ego mania is alive and well in Israeli politics.

 

With 120 seats in the Knesset, a majority of just 61 seats runs the country. For the first 29 years the Mapai Party (Labor) had a monopoly on power. However, since 1977 when a rightwing bloc formed around the Likud Party under the leadership of Menachem Begin took power, it has for the most part represented the dominant coalition in the Knesset. Israeli governments are coalition governments, because even during the heyday of the Labor Party, no party ever achieved a majority.

 

The trick is to put together a coalition of 61 members and for the past 50 years by the dint of demographics and divisions in the Left, rightwing governments tended to run the country. It has to be kept in mind that the distinctions between right and left are not of the American variety. According to Segal, what separates the right from the left is the distance from Yasser Arafat and his successors. Historically the left has been open to a two-state solution while the right has not.

 

Segal points out the reasons for the ascendancy of the right. The 1973 Suez War destroyed the credibility of the left on the security issue. The failure of the 2000 peace talks with Arafat led to the second intifada thereby causing the left to lose the peace issue. In the 2026 election the critical question will be the right’s failure to defend the country on October 7^th, 2023, be enough to topple its long-term hegemony or alternatively will its subsequent success be enough for it to hold power.

 

On the importance of personality over party, Segal highlights the case of General Ariel Sharon who became a Labor Party member to be promoted in the early 1970’s, he then broke with them to help found the Likud Party and later he founded his own party. During his life he built settlements that he would later destroy.

 

Today political divisions in Israel evolve around Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the question of Jewish versus Israeli identity. Israelis are either for him or against him, so much so that most center and left parties won’t be in a coalition government with him especially when Netanyahu’s guiding philosophy is “no enemies on the Right,” and no one trusts him. That abstention gives power to the Haredi religious parties whose votes in the Knesset are traded for draft exemptions and huge public subsidies that are bleeding the country white.

 

Those citizens who view themselves as primarily Israeli are largely secular and their views about trading West Bank land for peace with the Palestinians are based on a cold-eyed analysis of Israel’s security. On the other hand, those Israeli’s who view themselves as primarily Jewish view Judea and Samaria as sacred ground of the Bible where their forefathers walked and where David and Solomon were kings and where the prophets spoke truth to power. Thus, control of that land is non-negotiable.

 

After reading Segal’s book I have come to the conclusion that the only way to pull Israeli society together after the brutal Gaza War is for Netanyahu and the center left to form a coalition government that would remove the far-right Ben Gvir and Smotrich factions from the government as well as the religious parties.  ( See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2025/10/my-review-of-yaakov-katz-and-amir.html ) That would lower the temperature in Judea and Samaria and pave the way to radically reduce the power of the Haredi parties. It is not perfect, but as they say, politics is the art of the possible and both the right and the left are going to have to swallow their pride.

My Amazon Review of Oren Kessler's "Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict"

 The First Intifada

 

On April 15, 1936, at an Arab checkpoint in Palestine three Jewish drivers were singled out and shot.  Immediately thereafter the Irgun paramilitary retaliated by killing two fruit pickers and of a sudden the Great Arab Revolt, which would last for three years, is on its way. Oren Kessler, a journalist, and policy analyst based in Tel Aviv, argues convincingly that the die was cast for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that continues to this day.

 

Kessler takes us back to the mindset of the Jews, Arabs and British in the 1930’s. As the storm clouds of the Holocaust gather over Europe Jewish immigration to Palestine surged up to 75,000 a year and land purchases from local and absentee Arab landlords took off. Indeed, some of the sellers were leaders in opposition to the Jews in the local Arab community.  As a result Arab resentment against the newcomers rose and all it took was the match of the two murderous events to set off a general strike and a revolt against the British.

 

Kessler puts us into the mindsets of the Jews, Arabs and British as they grapple with the crisis. He demonstrates the charm of Chaim Weitzmann, the leader of the World Zionist Organization, the single-mindedness of David Ben Gurion’s policy Havlegah (self-Restraint) in the face of provocations and the realism of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the leader of the Revisionist Zionists.  On the Arab side he goes into great detail about the actions of Haj Amin al-Husseini the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who would later be found in Hitler’s court during World War II. Husseini establishes the policy of no compromise with the Jews. He even opposed the 1939 British White Paper that undid the Balfour Declaration and sharply limited Jewish immigration to Palestine. Kessler also highlights the role of Arab intellectuals Musa Alemi and George Antonious; the latter wrote “The Arab Awakening.”

 

On the British side he notes the influence of High Commissioners Herbert Samuels (1920-25) and Arthur Wauchope (1931-38). To me the most interesting character on the British side was General Orde Wingate, who was responsible for stopping the Arab sabotage of British assets in Palestine, especially the Iraq-Haifa oil pipeline. In order to this he enlists the nascent Jewish Hagenah by establishing the Special Night Squads. (SNS) Out of the SNS grew the Israel Defense Forces and its early leaders Moshe Dayan and Yigdal Allon.

Wingate drew his inspiration from Gideon of Book of Judges fame. As a longtime Bible reader, Wingate was knowledgeable of Gideon’s successful night attacks on the Midianites which coincidently was in the same general place where the SNS were operating.

 

In response to the Arab revolt the British initially adopted the Peel Plan in 1937 which called for a geographic separation of the parties, if you will, a two state solution. The Jews accepted the plan, and the Arabs rejected it out of hand. In 1939 facing a war in Europe the British seek to curry favor with the Arabs and adopt their infamous White Paper. The Jews rejected it and although the White Paper was popular amongst the Arab community, no compromise Husseini rejects it.

 

Nevertheless, by Spring 1939 the revolt is a spent force. The revolt succeeded in undoing the Balfour Declaration, but the Palestinian Arabs remained divided. On the other hand, the Jews, despite the general strike, jump-started a self-sustaining economy built on orange exports and local manufacturing, including weapons. Importantly, the Hagenah became the basis for what was to become the Israel Defense Force that was so successful in 1947-48.

 

As Kessler argues the events of 1936-39 formed the basis of today’s conflicts. Both the Jews and Palestinians are here to stay and a way has to be found for them to live together in a modicum of peace. Otherwise, we will continue to relive a 21^st Century version of the events of 1939.

For the full amazon URL see: The First Intifada (amazon.com)

My Amazon Review of Dennis Ross' and David Makovsky's "Be Strong and of Good Courage: How Israel's Most Important Leaders Shaped its Destiny"

A Plea for Israeli Pragmatism

Dennis Ross a seasoned American diplomat who spent the bulk of his career dealing with middle-eastern issues and David Makovsky a distinguished fellow at The Washington Institute have written an important book about the fundamental dilemma facing Israel. To them, both committed Zionists, Israel faces a choice: will it be a Jewish-democratic state without most of the occupied territories or will it be a larger democratic- binational state with all of the problems that entails? To them Israel can’t hold on to the bulk of the Palestinian population and remain a Jewish-democratic state.

The authors make a call for pragmatism on the part of the current Israeli leadership by invoking the memories of four prior prime ministers. They being David Ben Gurion who accepted the 1947 U.N. partition plan, Menachem Begin who returned the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for peace, Yitzhak Rabin who accepted the PLO as a negotiating partner and Ariel Sharon who told the settlers to give up their dreams in Gaza. All of these men were security conscious and it was their belief that pragmatism should dominate over ideology in exchange for what they believed to be a more secure Israel.

Now don’t get me wrong, Ross and Makovsky are not wild eyed peace at any price advocates. They are hard-headed realists who currently believe that very little can be accomplished over the near term in negotiating with the Palestinian Authority. Nevertheless when the time does come for negotiations they offer a series concrete proposals of what Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the U.S. can do to create an environment for an ultimate deal. These are too lengthy to go into here, but at its core the Israeli Right, which I am sort of a supporter, has to accept that the current situation is not stable in the long run if Israel is to be true to its Zionist and democratic character.

My main criticism of the book is that there are no maps. This is especially relevant to understand the geographic reality of the proposals they are making. Ross and Makovsky have made an important contribution to the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue making their book very relevant for today.

I received this book as a gift.

For the full amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2OBLHMQQWHY8L/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

My Amazon Review of Daniel Gordis' "Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn"

The Impossible Dream

After reading Daniel Gordis’ magnificent biography of Menachem Begin, I looked forward to his history of Israel. Although I liked his new book, I was somewhat disappointed in that I don’t think it is as good as Ari Shavit’s , “My Promised Land.”

Nevertheless Gordis brings to life the idea of a national homeland for the Jews from the proto-Zionists of the mid-1800s to Zionism becoming a mass movement under the leadership of Theodor Herzl after the first Zionist Congress in 1897. To dream of a state after nearly 2000 years of statelessness was truly an impossible dream, but it came true 50 years later after the horror of the holocaust that befell European Jewry.

What Zionism did was that it transformed the cowering Jew of the shtetl to the muscular member of the Israel Defense Forces of today. This is truly a major accomplishment. However early Zionism was secular and socialist and along the way it lost some of its Jewish soul which it is now returning to.

Gordis highlights the role of David Ben Gurion and his labor socialism in building the institutions necessary for statehood. After all, a state cannot be created out of thin air. The stat he built was dominated by the Ashkenazi Jews of northern Europe to the detriment of the Sephardi Jews of Africa and the Middle East. This would come home to roost with Begin’s surprise victory of 1977 giving power to the Israeli right.

As with most histories of Israel  Gordis discusses the Balfour Declaration, the White Paper, the war for independence, the 6-day war of 1956, the 1967 war and the 1973 war. Truly it is a history of conflict with the native Palestinian population and the neighboring Arab states. A conflict that continues to this day and in all likelihood it will not be resolved until the Palestinians accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish State.

What I found lacking in the book was the absence of any real discussion about the economy.  To be sure you need institutions to have a state, but you also need an economy. There should have been more discussion on the role of agriculture in the early days and the shift to a modern high-tech economy. He also neglects the importance of German Reparations in the 1950s, contributions form worldwide Jewry and foreign aid from the United States. While few in 1900 would have predicted the arrival of a Jewish state, even fewer would have predicted the modern economy that Israel has created. That is an important story worth telling. That said Gordis’ work puts in one volume a very readable history of Israel.

For the complete Amazon URL see:

https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Concise-History-Nation-Reborn-ebook/dp/B01B19O4FA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482250196&sr=1-1&keywords=daniel+gordis+israel