One of the most important books of the twentieth century, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is an uncompromising defense of liberal democracy and a powerful attack on the intellectual origins of totalitarianism. Popper was born in 1902 to a Viennese family of Jewish origin. He taught in Austria until 1937, when he emigrated to New Zealand in anticipation of the Nazi annexation of Austria the following year, and he settled in England in 1949. Before the annexation, Popper had written mainly about the philosophy of science, but from 1938 until the end of the Second World War he focused his energies on political philosophy, seeking to diagnose the intellectual origins of German and Soviet totalitarianism. The Open Society and Its Enemies was the result. An immediate sensation when it was first published in two volumes in 1945, Popper's monumental achievement has attained legendary status on both the Left and Right and is credited with inspiring anticommunist dissidents during the Cold War. Arguing that the spirit of free, critical inquiry that governs scientific investigation should also apply to politics, Popper traces the roots of an opposite, authoritarian tendency to a tradition represented by Plato, Marx, and Hegel. In a substantial new introduction written for this edition, acclaimed political philosopher Alan Ryan puts Popper's landmark work in biographical, intellectual, and historical context. Also included is a personal essay by eminent art historian E. H. Gombrich, in which he recounts the story of the book's eventual publication despite numerous rejections and wartime deprivations.

"In his final book before his death, Primo Levi returns once more to his time at Auschwitz in a moving meditation on memory, resiliency, and the struggle to comprehend unimaginable tragedy. Drawing on history, philosophy, and his own personal experiences, Levi asks if we have already begun to forget about the Holocaust. His last book before his death, Levi returns to the subject that would define his reputation as a writer and a witness. Levi breaks his book into eight essays, ranging from topics like the unreliability of memory to how violence twists both the victim and the victimizer. He shares how difficult it is for him to tell his experiences with his children and friends. He also debunks the myth that most of the Germans were in the dark about the Final Solution or that Jews never attempted to escape the camps. As the Holocaust recedes into the past and fewer and fewer survivors are left to tell their stories, The Drowned and the Saved is a vital first-person testament. Along with Elie Wiesel and Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi is remembered as one of the most powerful and perceptive writers on the Holocaust and the Jewish experience during World War II. This is an essential book both for students and literary readers. Reading Primo Levi is a lesson in the resiliency of the human spirit."--Publisher description.

Scholar and critic Ruth R. Wisse warns that the failure of liberals to stand up for Jews facing resurgent antisemitism signals the collapse of liberal democratic values. “Ruth R. Wisse is a writer of passion and precision, who has extraordinary polemical powers. All these enviable qualities are beautifully engaged in If I Am Not for Myself, an immensely impressive book on a subject of universal importance.” —Joseph Epstein, author of Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life: Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life, and recipient of the National Humanities Award “You don’t have to be Jewish to be moved and instructed by this brilliant critique of liberalisms that do not reciprocate the devotions of their adherents. Ruth R. Wisse joins literary grace to analytical rigor in a book that should generate necessary debates for a long time to come.” —Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, founder of the Institute for Religion and Public Life and First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life “The Jews have enemies, as this book urges us to recognize in its passionately felt and powerfully reasoned argument. Ruth R. Wisse mounts a resolve defense of basic Jewish rights and offers a determined challenge to all who would deny them. Her analysis of the psychological and political sources of anti-Jewish hostility is as formidable as it is provocative and deserves the most serious reflection.” —Alvin H. Rosenfeld, professor, and Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Indiana University “Wisse’s book is a timely and appropriate response to the ‘Woody Allen syndrome,’ typical of American Jews who charge Israel with betraying their own liberal legacy through its supposed suppression of Palestinian rights. What she charges in return is nothing less than the betrayal of the Jewish heritage itself by well-meaning, assimilated American Jews. Whether or not one agrees with all of her assertions, her book is mandatory reading for those who reject the platitudes of both Left and Right—which coincide in blaming Jews for the aggressions waged against them.” —Ronald Radosh, professor, and coauthor of The Rosenburg File: A Search for the Truth “This is a wonderful book, passionate, wise, and original. Wisse shows how liberalism has led the Jews into the worst betrayal of all—self-betrayal.” —Rael Jean Isaac, coauthor of The Coercive Utopians and Madness in the Streets

The life and politics of an American Jewish activist who preached radical and violent means to Jewish survival Meir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism. Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, declaring that Jews must protect themselves by any means necessary. He immigrated to Israel in 1971, where he founded KACH, an ultranationalist and racist political party. He would die by assassination in 1990. Shaul Magid provides an in-depth look at this controversial figure, showing how the postwar American experience shaped his life and political thought. Magid sheds new light on Kahane’s radical political views, his critique of liberalism, and his use of the “grammar of race” as a tool to promote Jewish pride. He discusses Kahane’s theory of violence as a mechanism to assure Jewish safety, and traces how his Zionism evolved from a fervent support of Israel to a belief that the Zionist project had failed. Magid examines how tradition and classical Jewish texts profoundly influenced Kahane’s thought later in life, and argues that Kahane’s enduring legacy lies not in his Israeli career but in the challenge he posed to the liberalism and assimilatory project of the postwar American Jewish establishment. This incisive book shows how Kahane was a quintessentially American figure, one who adopted the radicalism of the militant Left as a tenet of Jewish survival.

Sobibor traces the life of Berek (later Bernard) Schlesinger from his Polish shtetl childhood to his life during the Holocaust - hiding in the woods, finding refuge with non-Jews, confinement in Sobibor, escape during the uprising, working with partisans' documents. A physician after the war, he follows a relentless, unfulfilled pursuit of retribution for Nazi war criminals through the courts. The Sobibor uprising and its leaders, Alexander Pechersky, are pivotal to the novel. The author, Michael Lev, a product of Soviet Jewish culture, avoids loud rhetoric and heroic pathos, keeping the narration within the limits of realism. A flowing, masterful read.

In the wake of the Hamas attack of October 7 and the Israeli response, historian and current affairs commentator Yakov Rabkin brings together his writings that shed light on the violence in Palestine since the creation of the State of Israel. For decades, Yakov Rabkin has drawn attention to the danger Israel has posed to both Palestinians and Jews, both in Israel and in other countries. Far from protecting Jews, the State of Israel has contributed to creating and aggravating a situation that over time has become increasingly intractable. The author describes Palestine as it was on the eve of Zionist colonisation, recalling how Jews initially reacted to the Zionist movement and its goals. He highlights how Zionism, disdaining Jewish tradition, created a "new Hebrew man" steeped in a powerful mix of victimhood and exclusive nationalism and therefore oblivious to the fate of the Palestinians. He reminds us that Jewish identity is traditionally based on a spiritual commitment open to all races, the concept of Israel denoting not so much a geographical region but a community of believers. A return to the Land of Israel achieved by political and military means is antithetic to the Jewish tradition. In fact, Zionism has well-documented Protestant and Anglo-Saxon roots, which explains the massive support Israel enjoys among millions of Evangelical Christians around the world, and, on the other hand, why Jews have played such a prominent role in the pro-Palestinian protests sparked by violence against Gaza. At the same time, it shows how since 1967, there emerged a new national Judaism to provide religious legitimacy to the Zionist state. Avoiding polemics and sensationalism, this book allows the reader to reconsider the nature of the Israel/Palestine tragedy that has spilled over beyond Israel/Palestine. The book is rather short and targets the general reader. It requires no previous expertise in the subject, yet shows deeper and less known aspects of the conflict and, thus, opens perspectives on novel approaches to peace. This book has also been published in French, Japanese and Spanish language editions

Communist opposition to Zionism has a long history which pre-dates both the Russian Revolution and the Balfour Declaration of November 1917. Yet the Communist and Marxist critique of Zionism has always had a curious inconsistency, since it is not applied to all nationalist solutions of social problems. Thus Soviet and Chinese Communists regard their Marxist-Leninist ideology as perfectly compatible with Russian or Chinese nationalism, and the same is true of the 'people's democracies' in Eastern Europe or Asia where nationalism has been a predominant force. Similarly, Arab and Palestinian nationalism have been considered 'progressive' despite their very thin socialist content. Only in the case of Zionism, which historically has been a reaction to the failure of European and Islamic societies to resolve the Jewish question on democratic lines, has a major national movement been judged a priori 'reactionary', illegitimate and ultimately condemned to extinction. Anti-Zionism has become the great bazaar in which Soviet and Chinese Communists, Arab and Third World Marxists, Trotskyists, anarchists and Castroists together with feudal sheikhs, conservative Islamic rulers, and oil companies in the West (plus fascist fringe-groups) can find common ground in their antagonism to the Jewish State. Contemporary anti-Zionism is not merely the anti-Semitism of the left - Israel has even become the alibi for reviving the hoary Nazi myth of 'World Jewry' seeking to control and manipulate the fate of humanity. The essays in this book will give the reader a better understanding of the causes and possible consequences of this sinister trend. Mostly written between the Six-Day War of 1967 and the October War of 1973, they remain timely and important for the light they shed on a development whose implications are only now becoming fully apparent. They analyse the complex and changing factors which have influenced the position of the Communist parties and New Left movements towards the Middle East conflict, the significance of the 'anti-Zionist' campaigns in Russia and Eastern Europe, the dissentions and contradictions in western Communist parties, the relations of Soviet, Chinese and East German Communists to the Arab world, and the attitude of the post-Auschwitz New Left to Israel and the Jewish problem. All these disparate elements must be taken into account if one is to understand Communist and Marxist standpoints towards Israel and the Middle East conflict. Subject categories: Anti-Zionism; Communism; Israel; Politics

Hans Kohn's classic work provides a comprehensive overview of the history of Western civilization in the Near East. From ancient Greece to the Islamic Golden Age, Kohn examines the ways in which Western culture has been both shaped and influenced by the Near East. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This is a reproduction of the address, "Zionism, its aim and Objects," delivered by Nathaniel Levi in Melbourne, Australia, on July 2, 1906. In this speech, Levi articulates the aims and objectives of the Zionist movement, offering insights into the historical and ideological context of early Zionism. This address provides a valuable primary source for understanding the development of Zionist thought and its reception in Jewish communities around the world. Leviâ€(TM)s perspective, as presented in this address, offers a lens into the hopes and aspirations connected with the movement to establish a Jewish homeland. It is a historical document of enduring interest to those studying Jewish history, political Zionism, and the cultural dynamics within the Jewish diaspora at the beginning of the 20th century. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.