By 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, OpinionA Jew, a cosmopolitan, a humanist, a pacifist, a supporter of a united Europe, Zweig did not accept Herzl’s Jewish nationalism. At a request of Herzl to help organize a Zionist movement, Zweig refused: the Jewish theme was too small compared with the problems of Europe. [Alex Gordon]
The Burning Secret of the Great Biographer Read More »
Alex Gordon, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish HistoryBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — Jews have been criticized many times – by the left for being capitalists, by the right for being socialists. Only once in history has a Jew been both a socialist and a capitalist. It was Alexander Parvus. In Latin, “parvus” is small, the pseudonym under which Israel Gelfand began
Revolution as Business Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — On March 1, 1881, in Russia, members of the People’s Will assassinated Tsar Alexander II. The murder, to which the Jews had nothing to do, triggered the largest wave of Jewish pogroms in the 19th century due to a blood libel against Jews falsely accused of complicity in the
The Triumphant and Tragic Odyssey of the Inventor of Sea Cruises Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — Ernst Jones, one of Sigmund Freud’s few non-Jewish students, wrote in an obituary that his teacher’s achievements would not have been possible without his national characteristics, among them “a special national insight” and “a skeptical attitude toward illusions and deception.” Psychoanalysis shaped a new way of thinking that made
The Neuroses of Sigmund Freud Read More »
Alex Gordon, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Opinion