Jabotinsky: A Life By Hillel Halkin Yale University Press, 256 pages, $25 Hillel Halkin’s new biography, “Jabotinsky: A Life,” features as its frontispiece a 1918 photograph of the activist and author in his British military uniform. It’s an excellent choice of illustration that captures several of the paradoxes of his character. The baby-faced infantry officer…
Back in 1977, a young writer published a bold book that tried to propel aliyah, or emigration to Israel, to the heart of the American Jewish agenda. Hillel Halkin, who had made the move himself from New York seven years earlier, didn’t mince his words, and declared the Diaspora “doomed.” The future of the Jewish…
I appreciate Hillel Halkin’s passionate response to a cartoon that supports the boycott of Israel, promotes anti-Semitism, and advocates a viewpoint that he insists must not be permitted in a Jewish newspaper. Unfortunately, that is not the cartoon I drew. My cartoon pilloried the absurdity and intellectual vacuity of hasbara, the public relations effort by…
The Zelmenyaners: A Family Saga By Moyshe Kulbak, translated by Hillel Halkin, introduction and notes by Sasha Senderovich Yale University Press, 304 pages, $25 Near the end of “The Zelmenyaners,” a novel by Soviet Yiddish writer Moyshe Kulbak, one of the younger characters takes the stand to denounce her family. The proceedings are officially about…
With a new year come new names and fresh ideas to the pages of the Forward. I am pleased to announce the addition of two columnists who join the estimable list of writers contributing monthly to our opinion section. For me, there’s a personal joy in announcing these new colleagues. I’ll explain. I remember reading…
Garry Kasparov tells us what it’s like to play chess in the shadow of Bobby Fischer. In a 1923 article in The Nation, “Romanian-Jewish-American-Yiddish novelist, journalist, dandy, screwball folklorist of the Gypsies” Konrad Bercovici described “The Greatest Jewish City in the World.” An Israeli forger almost managed to sell a fake Kandinsky for three million…
Meir Shalev, one of Israel’s most renowned novelists, interviewed Ludmilla Ulitskaya from Russia at the International Writers’ Festival at Mishkenot Sha’ananim in Jerusalem on Tuesday May 4. Author of “Blue Mountain” (1991, “Russian Novel” in the Hebrew, translated by Hillel Halkin), more recently the acclaimed “A Pigeon and A Boy” (2007, translated by Evan Fallenberg)…
When a far-left Tel Aviv University historian penned a tome dedicated to disputing the historicity of Jewish peoplehood, it — unsurprisingly — caused something of a stir in Israel. Then the book was translated and published in France, where it — also unsurprisingly — was given a prestigious prize. (This prompted the estimable Hillel Halkin,…
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