The great historian John Lukacs died – please read Conrad Black’s excellent tribute to him. And here are links to two of my favourite Lukacs’ books: Five Days in London, May 1940; June 1941: Hitler and Stalin.
Tag Archives: history
Beryl O’Links
I’ve bookmarked and accumulated a lot of links in the past few weeks. I will not post them all, but here are a few of interest. I do want to add that I’ve had readers write me and say “hey Rondi, why don’t you comment on x/y/z?” Rest assured that as with everything that comes from me, there is no method to my madness. I do not ignore certain stories for political reasons or because I don’t care about them – as some have suggested – but merely for reasons of time allotment and forgetfulness. Of course, I am interested in some issues more than others, as most of us are.
So let us begin:
The Impossible Future of Christians in the Middle East.
When Turkey Destroyed its Christians. (This piece pains me enormously – I have such fondness for Turkey and Turks, in general.)
Fighting for the Soul of Islam in Sri Lanka, written by the novelist Ameena Hussein, after the horrific Easter bombings.
Rabbi present during the attack on the Poway Synagogue – and whose hands were injured – helps his surgeon don tefillin. Incredibly moving!
Sir Roger Scruton on the silencing and demonising of conservative thinkers.
Really interesting piece about Richard Holbrooke and American foreign policy.
The Mossad agent who captured Eichmann passed away. May Rafi Eitan’s memory be a blessing.
Article (in French) about why circuses that use animals are increasingly spurned by the public.
Queen Victoria as you’ve never seen her before – a rare film clip of her (and she’s wearing hipster sunglasses!).
That’s all for today, dear readers. I like ending with the Queen Victoria link – it is cute and fun.
Another Reason to Visit Italy
Not that there aren’t already so many. But a new museum explores 2,000 years of Jewish life in Italy.
Michel Bacos
A hero was celebrated in France last month. Michel Bacos was the pilot of the jet hijacked at Entebbe, the man who stayed – by choice – with the Jewish hostages, though he was not Jewish. What he was, was a veteran of World War II who had obviously learned the lessons of that nightmare. Hatikva, the Israeli anthem, was played before his burial.
Queen Victoria
She was born on this day, 200 years ago. Here are 20 fun facts about her. A great quote – I hope she truly did say it:
The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.
I have finally learned to adopt this as my philosophy – though when I was younger I did indeed waste time worrying about what other people thought of me.
George Washington’s Code of Civility
Washington copied out these 110 rules of civility as a schoolboy and while they are based — it would seem — on a 16th-century set of precepts, they are almost all (with some updating, naturally) applicable today. Don’t kill vermin, fleas or lice in front of people (I might even say “do not kill vermin”); do not express joy before a sick person (tacky!); be not tedious in discourse (yikes! Most of us should stop speaking then). And so on.
There is even one about eye-rolling (don’t do it), making one wonder if teenaged girls have always been as snarly and disrespectful. And what am I saying, “teenaged girls”? Heck, my parents used to roll their eyes at me, pretty much whenever I spoke.
The Suicide of the West
This week marks the 71st anniversary of Israeli independence and so, predictably, Hamas has to try to ruin the party. What was also predictable, sadly, was the reaction of so many in the West. Melanie Phillips has written a long blog post about it. Choice quote:
The Jews are often referred to as “the canaries in the mine.” With Western civilization in existential free-fall, the symbiotically linked contagions of Israel-bashing and antisemitism are both the cause and effect of this crisis.
Subscribing to the Arabs’ murderous falsehoods about Israel has destroyed the West’s moral compass – leaving it open to the murderous falsehoods about the people who gave it that moral compass in the first place and further blinding it to the forces threatening its own continued survival.
Read the whole thing here.
VE Day Eve
Today is as good a day as any to remind you to visit my other website.
Academia
I sometimes think about going back to school for my Ph.D. But then I read things like this and wonder. There was a time when having a doctorate meant something positive about your intellect and your ability to think critically. I don’t think that is true anymore. I think it merely means something about being able to fit in with the unfortunate zeitgeist. Further, I think my Significant Other is correct when he says tenure should be abolished.
Charles van Doren
Charles van Doren died this week. For those of you to whom that name means nothing, he was at the centre of the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. Robert Redford directed this excellent film about it all. Because it has no car chases or shooting and the actual scandal didn’t involve anything sexy, I can’t see it attracting any Millennials, but I highly recommend it – a nostalgic portrait of a time when we expected honesty from people. It is also about the van Dorens. My family was never quite so glamorous, but my parents — like van Doren’s mother and father — were extremely competitive and had huge expectations for their kids. I always felt a lot of pressure.
The film’s trailer: