By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — In the Middle East, the Jews defeated a superior enemy force in six days. In Europe, a Jew could only hold the head of state for six days. A 25-year-old poet, a Jew by nationality, was president of a European country for six days. The rule of philosopher kings […]
Ernst Toller: The Six-Day President Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — On December 21, 1935, the German writer and publicist Kurt Tucholsky passed away in the Swedish Gothenburg. He was 45 years old. Kurt Tucholsky, a satirist writer, the owner of a brilliant pen, a songwriter, did not write a single line during the last four years of his stay
Heinrich Heine’s Doppelganger Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — In “Yesterday’s World,” Stephan Zweig wrote: “For the Jews, being attached to the spirit of the people or country in which they live has become not only a means of external protection, but also a deep inner need. Their desire for a homeland, for peace, for refuge, for security,
The ‘Torch,’ or Anti-Freud, of Karl Kraus Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — “The liberation of the eternal city on the banks of the Tiber marked the beginning of the liberation of the eternal city on the slopes of Moria, with the resurrection of Italy begins the resurrection of Judaea,” Moses Hess, a secular Jewish philosopher, wrote in 1862 in the preface
Moses Hess: The Red Rabbi Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — On June 28, 1914, the Serb student Gavrila Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in Sarajevo. A month later, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia for the act of one Serb. The guilt of one person was shifted to the Serbian
The History of Insanity Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — The struggle for equal rights for Jews began with the writings of the philosopher and educator Moses Mendelssohn. In his book Jerusalem (1783) he described his version of Jewish life: one must be a Jew who observes the commandments and an enlightened German; Jews are a cultural, religious, but
Felix Mendelssohn’s Dream Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — The ideology of antisemitism is not dying, it is changing forms somewhat, but the imagination of the ideologues does not go far enough. It uses the experience accumulated by the technologists of the witch trials. Blaming the Jews of the Diaspora for the creation and policies of the state
The New Life of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion: The Rudolf Slansky Trial Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Israel, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — Karl Marx grew a beard that emphasized his resemblance to Zeus from an ancient statue from the fourth century B.C., a scaled-down copy of which he kept in his office. Marx, an ardent atheist, thought he was God. In spite of his divine ambitions, Marx was a supporter of
Karl Marx: The Philosophy of Liberation From Jewishness Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — After most intellectuals stopped reading and studying the Bible, it became fashionable to declare secular writers, philosophers, and scientists to be prophets, predictors of the future. The biblical meaning of prophets has been lost, so the ranks of prophets include authors who were alien to being counted as part
The Legend of Franz Kafka Read More »
Alex Gordon, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — In August 1912, in Neue Rundschau, Stephan Zweig analyzed the work of notable new writers who had appeared in German literature: “Apart from Thomas Mann, certainly the one with the greatest hope of creating a truly German novel, two writers, Heinrich Mann and Jacob Wasserman have already shown with
Jacob Wasserman: The Story of Unrequited Love Read More »
Alex Gordon, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish HistoryOn a cold December day in occupied Paris in 1940, a large group lined up at the Nazi commandant’s office. Jews stood waiting to be registered, anxious for their lives. In the crowd was a thin, tall old man with a bulging, high forehead, a shallow chin and a small mustache. After waiting for hours in the cold, he caught a bad cold, caught pneumonia, and died on January 3, 1941. He died in the very town in which he had been born 80 years earlier. Registered by the Nazis, the old Jew was one of France’s most famous men, Professor Henri Bergson of the Collège de France, member of the French Academy of Sciences, winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature. In the Pantheon there is an inscription on one of the columns: “To Henri Bergson, a philosopher whose life and work have done honor to France and to human thought. [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Henri Bergson Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History
By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel –The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation website says about her: “A freedom-loving woman in a world in which women were not free; an intellectual in a world in which only men were considered educated and intelligent; a political leader in a world in which men ruled; a socialist in a world of
Jewish Biography: Rosa Luxemburg, the ‘Red Rose’ Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish HistoryBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — In 1783, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s play “Nathan the Wise” premiered at the Berlin Theater. The play was a literary and theatrical sensation and a shock to Germany, and perhaps to the entire Christian world. Hitherto Jews had been considered and portrayed as immoral and despicable people. Lessing’s character Nathan,
Moses Mendelssohn: The Berlin Dreamer Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — Heinrich Heine was loved and hated by the two nations to which he belonged. The Germans loved his lyrics and disliked his political poetry. The Jews liked to attribute his genius to themselves and disliked his conversion to Protestantism, which he often joked: “What do you want? I found
Meeting Heinrich Heine Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, Opinion