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Home , Alastair Campbell, David Miliband, Marion Kozak, Miliband of Brothers

THE STORY OF HOW The son was David Miliband’s father, to ensure their survival. At war’s end, ascended to these heights is a tale of who soon changed his name to Ralph. Marion also made her way to Britain, historical forces that shaped Jewish life He briefly attended the School where she met , who by in Europe. Like many Jews, his paternal of Economics (LSE), then served for then had resumed his studies in politics grandfather, Samuel, a leather worker, the rest of World War II in the Royal at the LSE and had become a committed left after World War I, eventually Navy, patrolling the Mediterranean Marxist. It was the 1960s and Marion settling in Brussels. But on May 10,1940, and translating intercepted German shared his passion for left-wing politics. the Nazis overran . Samuel and communications. They married and, rather late in life, his 16-year-old son Adolphe walked for Meanwhile, Miliband’s mother, started a family. David was their first­ two days to the port of Ostend, where , and her family were born, followed by his brother Ed. they boarded the last boat for Britain. Left trapped in Nazi-occupied Czestochowa Ralph became one of the most behind were Samuel’s wife and daughter, in southern Poland. Marion and her prominent left-wing intellectuals in who fled to a village in the countryside, mother found shelter in the home of a Britain and a leading figure of the “New successfully hiding from the Gestapo. local Polish family who took great risks Left,” a movement sparked by the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary and given impetus by the Vietnam War. Britain was the epicenter of global cultural changes SO THERE IT IS that marked the ’60s and Labour was So there it is: the siren. It’s 10 am. The three of us in power. Although it was in theory a stand up around the table in the small dinette- socialist party, Ralph viewed Labour as for some reason we all face the window completely cut off from the working and the birds are chirping their heads off. masses who founded it and argued that In my mind are my father’s losses: sister, big brother, it had become a servant of the existing his wife, his two sons-and the story my mother told me just last year very carefully, shaking off for a moment power structure. the slowly rising flood of confusion and timelessness Ralph Miliband’s world view was that more and more is her life these days: shaped by big ideas but also by his painful that when they visited Yad Vashem in ’77, family history. Israel’s swift victory in the one month before his final stroke, my father had fainted, Six-Day War of 1967 created fissures having discerned his brother among the open sea of faces there. And in my mind it’s yitgadal v’yitkadash within the New Left that still have not for Motek and Rina and the wife and sons healed. Harsh critics, including many whose names I don’t know (and for my father, too) and of the movement’s Jewish intellectuals, the next thing I know it’s my first accused Israel of waging a war of colonial Yom Ha-Shoah in Israel nine years back aggression against the Palestinians. In on a highway in the middle of the Negev at 10 am, contrast, Ralph Miliband supported the few cars to be seen in the wide and flat terrain pulled over to the side under a big sky, and by each of them Israel’s actions. one or two figures standing silent and now, As the son of a professor, David’s now, breaking into and penetrating the drone of the siren growing years were peripatetic. At first, is a silly musical phrase calliope-like the family lived in , a leafy they use instead of a bell to mark the end of each class area just north of London’s Regent’s Park, in the school across the way and one minute has elapsed and before I know it famous today as home to movie stars and the siren is rising in pitch and the two minutes are gone models, but then a colony of left-leaning and there is silence for a beat, professors and writers. They moved when Ralph left LSE to teach in the northern and for that second minute, I realize, English city of and later at Boston’s there were neither birds nor inner words nor memory nor breath, for one entire minute, all there was Brandeis University, returning to Britain was the sound of the siren and that was all there was. for David’s high school years. As a result, the future became a fan —Bernard Horn of both the British soccer team Arsenal and of a certain American baseball team. As Miliband once put it, “If you lived

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If anyone objects to the union of these two people, here, or on Facebook or on Twitter, speak, post, or tweet now, or forever hold your peace." in Boston, you, of course, support the Thatcher-Reagan era. “Our purpose,” Boston Red Sox.” wrote Miliband, “is to show that the THE OTHER MILIBAND economic justification for current DAVID’S CHILDHOOD was steeped levels of inequality is spurious.” The in values of equality and justice and book was notable for what it was not: his father’s frustration with Britain’s It was not a shrieking, rhetorical screed political system. As a young man, his against the widening gap between rich commitment to those values led to a and poor in Conservative Britain but break with his father’s world view and rather a measured and sober analysis toward an embrace of Labour Party of the economic cost of that gap to David Miliband may be cruising toward politics. After a first class degree from British society. Miliband called for the Labour leadership, but one person who Oxford in politics, philosophy and redistribution of wealth not because he might get in his way is his brother Ed. economics followed by a master’s at MIT wanted a revolution, but bccause it would Four years younger, Ed, 40, has risen faster in Boston, Miliband gained notice as a tap the economic potential of those who than his wunderkind older brother. Having policy analyst at the Institute for Public had been excluded and reduce costs in served as an advisor (and confidant) to Prime Minister and as a Policy Research, a think-tank with close the long run. cabinet minister, he was appointed secretary ties to Labour. It was the early 1990s The book, published before Miliband of state at the newly created Department of and the party had just lost its fourth turned 30, had a major impact on the new Energy and Climate Change in 2008. Ed election in a row to the Conservatives. team that headed the Labour Party. He has received high marks for his leadership Every speck of policy and ideology was became particularly close to , working on climate change abroad and at home. There is some amusement the newly elected party leader. Blair was up for re-examination. among Labourites about the party’s “band In 1994, Miliband co-edited a not a Marxist; he was barely a Socialist; of brothers”: At its 2005 conference volume of essays called Paying fo r Ralph Miliband reportedly despised the delegates wore “My favourite Miliband” Inequality: The Economic Cost o f Social young Labour Party leader, considering badges, with pictures of either David or Injustice. With enough charts and him a closet Tory. But his son and the Ed. His affable and easy-going manner is statistics to beat the most ardent free- soon-to-be prime minister saw the world causing politicians, cabinet members and journalists alike to suggest that he, too, marketer into submission, the book differently. They believed that Labour has the making of a future prime minister. took on the economic orthodoxy of the had to embrace a new kind of progressive

C ontinued on page 59 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 / MOMENT 29 politics to meet Britain’s current needs. BECOMING FOREIGN SECRETARY wasn’t Michigan professor who specializes in In the post-industrial society, the what Miliband had in mind. Chris Anglo-Jewish history. Miliband has faced working “masses” were property owners. Brown, professor of international criticism for his closeness to Blair, and as To be elected, Labour had to speak a relations at LSE, says David Miliband foreign secretary has spent considerable new language. Borrowing from Ralph hoped that Prime Minister Brown energy extricating British foreign policy Miliband’s idea of a “New Left,” the party would put him in charge of a big-budget from the compromises and possible rebranded itself “.” domestic department, like the Home illegalities associated with the war on David Miliband is credited with Office, which oversees immigration terror. He has managed to get British writing much of the 1997 Labour Party policy, counter-terrorism and science. citizens out of Guantanamo, yet at the election manifesto—its party platform. But after a smooth rise to the upper same time has fought what looks like a There wasn’t much naked socialism echelons of the Labour Party, Miliband losing battle against keeping secret the in it. But there was a lot of emphasis had slammed into the wall that has interrogation methods (torture) used on something his father, who passed prevented Labour from fulfilling the on some of those citizens. His public away in 1994, would have approved of: promise of its 1997 manifesto: the rivalry avowals that this would compromise education. Labour won the election in between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. American intelligence and might lead an historic landslide. Miliband followed The men were elected to Parliament to the U.S. withholding top intelligence Blair into 10 as head of the same year and plotted against each from Britain seem mealy-mouthed to policy. Blair’s chief of communications, other to become prime minister. Blair the more vocal critics of the “special , gave him the won out because it was clear to everyone relationship” between the two nations. nickname “.” that he was a great campaigner. Brown’s Climate change is one area where Miliband was thought of as a brilliant intellectual skills are formidable but he is the British have been able to clearly policy wonk but not a politician. “David not at all personable. He broods, he holds differentiate themselves from the is very austere,” says one political figure grudges, and he does it all in public. In United States. Throughout the Bush who has known him for a long time. “He Brown’s mind, Miliband was a Blair Administration, the U.S. was not a is shy and values his privacy.” Despite loyalist and a potential rival. But he was player, and the Obama Administration, an affinity for blogging, his personal too important to ignore, and so he was while more interested, is just getting life is virtually unknown beyond a few “relegated” to the Foreign Office to enjoy its toes wet. The has basic facts. His wife, Louise Shackleton, the prestige and not get in the way. made climate change a major foreign a violinist with the London Symphony Whatever his initial feelings about policy priority in recent years, led, Orchestra, is a dual American-British the appointment, Miliband has thrown among others, by Miliband’s brother citizen whom he met on a flight to himself into a job that is no longer Ed, who is secretary of state for energy Rome. The couple adopted two young as glamorous as it once was. In the and climate change. Last November, Ed sons, Isaac and Jacob, from the United heyday of the British Empire, the Miliband helped usher in the Climate States. His ability to keep his private life foreign secretary’s position ranked only Change Act, which commits the United private is an amazing feat in a country slightly behind the prime minister’s in Kingdom to reducing carbon emission with a rapacious tabloid press. importance. But because the center of by 80 percent from a 1990 baseline by But in 2001, much to the surprise of world power shifted to Washington after the year 2050. David Miliband has called many who knew him, Miliband threw World War II, Britain’s foreign policy for all governments, including Barack himself into electoral politics. He stood ambitions today are more modest. Obama’s, to make similar commitments, for Parliament for the safe Labour seat Since Labour came to power in 1997, arguing, “This is too important an issue of , a gritty northern British and American foreign policy for conventional negotiation where constituency. It was the kind of place has run along the same track on the everybody plays their cards close to their where voters favored the socialism big issues: Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq chest until the last minute.” his father endorsed. Once elected to and aid for Africa. On issues such as the Oliver Kamm, an editorial writer for Parliament, his rise to the cabinet seemed unpopular war in Iraq, being seen as the of London and an Oxford pre-ordained. In 2006, Blair appointed United States’ lapdog is not a good place contemporary of the foreign secretary, him secretary for environment, food and when it comes to public opinion. “That notes that Miliband has approached rural affairs. The following year, the new is what brought Tony Blair down. He was dealing with Russia and Iran differendy prime minister, Gordon Brown, named seen as too slavish to American policy,” than did Blair: “He’s been less prone to give him foreign secretary. says Todd Endelman, a University of [Russian Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 / MOMENT 59 the benefit of any doubt. And he’s been strong on holding the Iranian leadership to account for their nuclear duplicity.” Miliband has made it a priority to reach out to Arab and Muslim communities both outside and inside the U.K. In May, he declared that the West needs to “understand the Muslim world better. We need to hold fast to our values and support those who seek to apply them, or we will be guilty of hypocrisy.” “Miliband and his team within the foreign ministry were the first to realize that the term ‘the global war on terror’ ought to be shelved,” says Steve Clemons, senior fellow at the New America Foundation. Miliband’s message of tolerance is important not only to an international audience but a domestic one. Britain is home to 2.4 million Muslims, a population that is growing 10 times faster than its others. Regarded as one of the most tolerant countries in Europe, Britain struggles with questions of integration, particularly the social exclusion of its Muslims, as well as the psychological aftermath of the July 2005 suicide bombings on London’s public transport system carried out by young Britons of Pakistani descent, which left 52 people dead and over 700 injured. Britain has been a leading partner in attempts to lure Syria away from Iraq and into serious peace discussions with Israel, and Miliband has become a point person for these discussions. Shortly after Barack Obama’s election, Miliband visited Damascus, the first official visit by a member of the British government in nearly a decade. His meetings with his Syrian counterpart helped smooth the way for recent discussions between President Obama’s special Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, and Syrian president Bashar Assad. On the subject of Israel itself, Britain has shown a greater willingness than the United States to criticize the Israelis over settlements and what some call

64 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 the disproportionate responses to Poland is my roots,” he wrote. “But During tough economic times, like now, provocations from Gaza and southern Poland is the scene of terrible tragedy— there is popular resentment, for example, Lebanon. (Jewish Labour MP Gerald mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” of the 600,000 Poles who have migrated to Kaufman is among the most vocal.) And he learned more about his family’s Britain for work since 2004. Nevertheless, Like his predecessors, both Labour past when his brother traveled to Moscow the Conservatives’ invitation of Kaminski and Conservative, Miliband has for talks on climate change. WTiile there, and Zile to their 2009 conference has been unequivocal: “Settlements are during a radio interview, an elderly allowed Labour to stir controversy and illegal under international law,” he caller announced on the air, “I am Sofia puncture the carefully crafted new image told Parliament last summer. “They Davidovna Miliband. I am your relative; of the Conservatives as the “nice” party. are a major blockage to peace in the I am the only one left.” It was no hoax. Even the spotlight on the Middle East on the basis of a two-state The woman was indeed his 8 7-year-old Conservatives’ strange bedfellows may solution.” cousin. The pair had a private meeting not be enough to pull Labour out of its during which Ed learned that he and doldrums, which means that Miliband THAT MILIBAND IS JEWISH is almost David had previously unknown distant could be out of government after the never mentioned in professional cousins living in Britain. elections. What he will do then is a assessments. Unlike the large and Many members of the Jewish matter of wide speculation among organized Jewish community in the community have come to appreciate London’s chattering classes. If he makes U.S., the U.K.’s Jewish community is David Miliband’s growing public a bid to lead the party he could end up smaller—around 267,000—and quieter, acceptance of his heritage. Some being prime minister by the middle of too. According to one of its leaders, especially like that he hosts a Hanukkah the next decade. who prefers to speak anonymously, the celebration at his official residence, Observers are divided about whether community has “genuine ambivalence something that no foreign secretary David Miliband really wants the top about one of their own being close to had ever done. “He has learned the job—and if he’s got what it takes to land power,” despite the fact that Jews have a power of small symbols to the Jewish it. In July, he wrote an op-ed piece that long history in British politics. While in community,” added the community was widely seen as critical of Brown’s the U.S., Democrats can count on wide leader approvingly. leadership and many assumed that he support from the Jewish population, would challenge Gordon Brown for the British Jews are more divided between WITH A GENERAL ELECTION Labour leadership. the Conservative and Labour parties, expected next May, Labourites and the But it didn’t happen. Oliver Kamm according to Todd Endelman. Conservatives have already commenced regrets his college friend’s lack of audacity. David Miliband grew up in a home campaign hostilities. The Labour Party “His opportunity to be Labour leader without a close connection to London’s is considered to be in the position where has, for all effective purposes, passed, Jewish community, which is traditionally the Conservatives were in 1994: ripe because he didn’t go for the kill when more religiously observant than its for defeat. They are currently 16 to 18 he might have done and ought to have American counterpart. According to one points behind the Conservatives in every done, against a leader who will produce close observer, “The Milibands were opinion poll. electoral catastrophe for the party.” not active members of the community The Conservatives are led by David Michael White, veteran political and this was resented. They were not Cameron, a contemporary of Miliband’s columnist of , also doesn’t acknowledged as really being Jewish.” at Oxford, and just as fresh-faced as the think it will happen. “David Miliband Miliband, who is an atheist, has foreign secretary. He has studied the is a smart guy and a decent guy, very become more open about discussing his New Labour playbook and repositioned thoughtful, too, for a politician,” he ethnic roots than in the past. This June, his party squarely in the middle ground says. “Can he become Labour leader he undertook a private visit to Warsaw’s of British politics—except on one issue: and even prime minister? Not on the Jewish cemetery, where he spent time Europe. Britain’s Conservatives have evidence I’ve seen so far. He’s neither on his own looking for the graves of his long been skeptical about the country’s ambitious nor ruthless enough, no family. In a candid article for London’s membership in the , icicle in the heart.” But other political Jewish Chronicle, Miliband conceded which some view as nothing more than commentators are not so sure. Ned that this visit had been too long in a stealth program for creating a United Temko of newspaper coming. “There must have been a deep States of Europe, headquartered in says, “My impression is he wants the ambivalence at the heart of this delay. Brussels and run by France and Germany. leadership.” See bottom of first column on next page

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 / MOMENT 65 around in circles in their new soles going Ukraine was anxious to be removed Federation of Ukraine. “The case went “Who knew?” from the list, which it regarded as a Cold all the way to the Supreme Court,” says I think that when you die, it is the War relic. On March 23, 2006, Ukraine Frenkel proudly. “Ours was the first case same as before you were bom. I think was exempted from Jackson-Vanik with MAUP lost.” that heaven is the feeling you have when support from the American Jewish the room is sunny and you are awake community. In return, the Ukrainian Uk r a in e a n d Ru s s ia are the only two but your eyes are not open. I think that government promised to keep up the former Soviet republics that still have my brother is in heaven. Even though pressure on MAUP. substantial Jewish populations. I hear he is older than I am, he is a baby. I think Still, many in the international estimates ranging from 100,000 to that if G-d called him back just at the community were uncomfortable with 400,000, a small fraction of the country’s last second, he must have had a very how long it took Yushchenko, and 46 million people. gentle heart. That if he were here, and especially Foreign Minister Tarasyuk, to Josef Zissels, chairman of the knew what I knew, the things I have told disassociate themselves from the school. Association of Jewish Organizations and you, that his heart would be broken, and “It took considerable international Communities in Ukraine, explains why that he would have walked around from attention to make Yushchenko and it is difficult to count Jews in Ukraine. person to person with his hand out, like Tarasyuk distance themselves from The last census, he says, recorded waiting for a coin, asking people to help MAUP,” says Rudling, adding that 105,000 self-identified Jews but that him repair the world. Or that he would it is not known what sort of money number doesn’t include all of those with have prayed with so much sadness that Yushchenko, Kravchuk, Tarasyuk and Jewish mothers, which would bring the the sanctuary would have filled with his others received “for their associations count to 200,000. “If only one parent tears and the chairs and even the Torahs with Shchokin’s network.” Jed Sunden is Jewish, a person usually says he is would have been lost in the torrent. He agrees that the response was slow. “I not Jewish—this is inertia from Soviet was all love and no bone and his lungs don’t think a lot of the officials even times,” he says. “The number of Jews were never even filled with air. It was knew about the campaign,” he explains. increases to 400,000 if you apply the like two strong angels took him by each “In the States it would have been very criteria of Israel’s Law of Return.” arm and rushed him back to heaven. rapid, but public pressure and freedom These numbers are minuscule And he only had a minute to look of the press are new in this country.” compared with the nearly two million behind him and see my mother holding By the end of 2006, MAUP no longer Jews who lived in Ukraine during the the baby he was. And he played at the appeared infallible. When Shchokin 19th century. “A great chapter of Jewish feet of G-d’s throne, and that is where and other MAUP professors ran on life occurred here,” Jed Sunden reminds he met me and said, “I’ll stay here—you the Conservative Party platform in me. “The Hasidic movement was born go,” and the feeling I have in my chest parliamentary elections, they garnered and thrived in Galicia, now western when my heart pounds and my arms feel less than one percent of the vote, failing Ukraine and southeast Poland. There empty is from the falling, falling down to win any seats. MAUP also began to were great yeshivas, and great secular to earth. O lose its luster in court. Mikhail Frenkel, literature came out of the community.” the editor of the newspaper The Jewish The tumultuous history of Jews M iliband continued from previous page Observer and chair of the Association of in Galicia began in the 10th century If Labour loses, there’s talk of him Jewish Mass Media in Ukraine, was sued when Polish nobles invited Jews to becoming Europe’s first foreign minister, for defamation for a September 2005 manage their business interests, placing and indeed, Miliband would like to see editorial he wrote after a yeshiva student the newcomers in direct conflict with Britain take a greater role in European was attacked outside Kiev’s central the peasants who worked the land. As Union leadership. “He has been successful synagogue, receiving brain injuries that Polish control weakened in the 17th in demarcating his own political agenda, left him in a coma. Frenkel blamed century and Russia expanded, Cossack and even should the Brown government MAUP for spreading “the poison of troops marauded throughout central crash and bum, David Miliband will anti-Semitism and Judephobia” and the and western Ukraine, slaughtering Jews emerge unscathed,” says Jonathan government for doing nothing about it. and destroying their communities. Laurence, a professor of political science In that same suit, MAUP also named Under Russian control, Jews were at Boston College and a senior fellow at Ukraine’s chief rabbi Yankel Bleich, a confined to the Pale of Settlement, Brookings Institution’s Center on the U.S. Karlin-Stolin Hasid from Brooklyn, and which included much of Ukraine, and and Europe. “He has a bright future.” ® Sergey Maxim, then head of the Jewish from 1922 on were citizens of the Soviet

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