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Title: Perfidy by Ben Hecht ISBN: 0-9646886-3-8 Publisher: Milah Press Pub. Date: April, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Conspiracy of Silence
Comment: Ben Hecht wrote this book in 1961. In the last 15 years, many historical studies have corroborated Hecht's findings: Ben Gurion and his socialist cronies, as well as most of the Jewish leaders in the U.S., did almost nothing to save the Jews of Europe in 1933 - 45; in many cases, they hindered efforts of rescue. Perfidy describes the shamful Kasztner affair where close to a million Hungarian Jews might have been saved but were betrayed in 1944. A similar pattern, however, occurred throughtout the Holocaust: The Jewish socialists in pre Israel Palestine bowed to the British who did not want any Jewish refugees in Palestine which would have offended the Arabs. The American Jewish leaders considered FDR as God. FDR, and his administration, did not want to help the Jews so everybody kept quiet and did nothing, including the Russians. The only ones who fought this conspiracy of silence were the Irgun members. Hecht dramatizes all these historical facts very well. No doubt, the Allies did not want anything to interfere with the war effort, but their excuses for not trying to save the Jews were cynical and outright anti-semetic. The war years were full of monumental rescue undertakings by the Allies such as the shipping of 40,000 British children to the U.S, and the rescue of several thousands Yuguslav partisans. In 1944, due to the Irgun's public relation campaigns and mounting political pressure, FDR was forced to create the War Refugee Board which saved about 200,000 Jews from slaughter (according to historians' estimates). Hecht did not mention it in Perfidy which does not deal with the U.S. response to the Holocaust. Although Hecht's description of the shamful betrayal of the European Jews by Ben-Gurion, Weiztman, and others has been well documented in recent years, one should not ignore the real Nazi collaborators who did not want millions of refugees on their hands: the British empire, the Middle East Arabs, and the FDR administration. Perfidy includes some prophetic insights which I fully agree with: Governments, and other human organizations, are doomed. Humanity will pay for the torture and murder of six million inocent people.
Rating: 5
Summary: Airing Dirty Laundry...
Comment: This book gives new meaning to the phrase "cult classic." Published in the early 1960's it deals with one of the great "cause celebres" in Israeli history--the Kastner affair--which remains almost wholly unknown in the english speaking world.
In brief, the story goes like this, Malchiel Greenwald charged Kastner with collaboration in Hungary. Kastner at the behest of the Ben Gurion government sued for libel. Alas Greenwald's attorney, Shmuel Tamir staged a spirited defense and the honor of established Zionist organizations during the Holocaust was challenged. Kastner lost the libel suit, appealed, lost again. And when faced with the possibility of being convicted under Israel's anti-collaboration law (the one Eichmann was convicted under), he was convenient "assasinated."
Along the way Hecht shares many stories just beginning to be written about in english including Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl's "Europa Plan" and the death of Hanah Szenes. As well as his rather celebratory accounts of Irgun terrorists against the British in Palestine. (I use the term not in condemnation, Irgunists routinely embraced it)
There are many levels in which this book can be read. It can be appreciated as a polemic against the establishment zionism of Weizmann and Ben-Gurion. It can be read as a powerful cautionary tale against nation-states. It can be read as a despairing anguished cry over a humanity that seems hell-bent for nuclear annihilation.
The value for all people who care about the State of Israel is that this was the first--and for a long time only--comprehensive account of this defining moment in Israeli history.
To this very day, public airing of this controversy in english, is discouraged. Jim Allen sought to dramatize the story in his play PERDITION and, in 1987, was twice shut down by major Jewish organizations and was subjected to a libel action by a minor figure in a telling re-play of the original Kastner affair. The action was not sustained, a reading of the play was put on at a community center. (A full account can be found in Uri Davis's book CROSSING THE BORDER.)
On the other hand, Hecht is so close to his subject. Everything is black and white. While he celebrates Irgun actions against the British, he has nothing to say concerning actions against the Palestinians. The name Deir Yassin is never mentioned.
Likewise, by Hecht's reckoning it was the Irgun, and the Irgun only that won palestine for the jewish state. But the establishment of Israel was not just a military triumph but a diplomatic one as well. Without Weizmann cultivating the British and Ben Gurion cultivating the US, there would have been no Balfour declaration, no mandate for the establishment for a jewish state at Versailles, no US support for UN partition, and no US instantaneous recognition for Israel in 1948.
In the interest of balance, it is probably a good idea to compare his account with the relevant section in Tom Segev's THE SEVENTH MILLION. Also for a fuller account of Weissmandl activities and his charges against the established Zionist organizations see THE UNHEEDED CRY. For a scholarly, critical account of rescue efforts and charges of zionist non-cooperation one should see Yehuda Bauer's JEWS FOR SALE. Finally, one should probably look at Trotskyite Lenni Brenner's ZIONISM IN THE AGE OF DICTATORS, while strident and tendentious, there is a mass of devastating information in the book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Chilling. Inspiring. Essential reading.
Comment: "The only practical way yet discovered by the world for curing its ills is to forget about them."
This book had been on our shelves for years, conspicuously mysterious with its black cover and the lone word "Perfidy" glinting in gold. Curiosity kept drawing me to it, but suspicion kept holding me back. Until finally a conversation I had with a friend about WWII at last compelled me to begin reading it.
I had been told that it's a difficult - almost dangerous - book to read, because it will change how I see the country I live in, the country I love and whose history I am so proud of. And that it is a controversial account, so much so that it was banned throughout the Land.
From the first pages it is clear this book is not like any other. The force and conviction of the words pierce the soul. Ben Hecht's style is unique and genius. At times cynically witty, at times vividly dramatic, and at times seriously forthright. I couldn't put the book down and at the same time I couldn't sit still and keep my mind focused from apprehension.
Other reviews detail the plot of this book. I would like address issues surrounding it. Firstly, while bitterly controversial, the book is not banned in Israel. Just last week I saw several copies of it in both English and Hebrew at the Mt. Scopus library at Hebrew University. Secondly, does Ben Hecht sometimes sacrifice truthfullness for artistic style? I believe it is possible, because I am a little familiar with Hecht as a writer. Thirdly, did it change how I see my country? Absolutely. While it made me appreciate it more, it made me revere it less.
I think this is the most important book I have ever read.
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Title: The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine by Edwin Black ISBN: 0786708417 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: March, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration With the Nazis by Lenni Brenner ISBN: 1569802351 Publisher: Barricade Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust by Tom Segev ISBN: 0805066608 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 14 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz ISBN: 047146502X Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Secret War Against the Jews : How Western Espionage Betrayed The Jewish People by John Loftus, Mark Aarons ISBN: 0312156480 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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