il,TffWiK<MBinRiiCCi!afe»i?flg-t-agiigS^^ r^ij^mst^mms^'fs-is-.s.^^^mii.-^ztKH^^^^ VOLUME 1 No. 1 JANUARY 2001 journal ^ Association of Jeu/ish Refugees Earth Odyssey 2001 The world as always is in a state of change It is an uncontested fact, brought back America's dormant isolationism case. The chief Israelophobe among the to mind by the recent TV series resurfaced. Congressional voices Europeans is France, a country sufhised Conquistadors, that the discovery of demanded that Europe get to grips with Gaullist self-regard, over half of America changed world history forever. with crises on its own doorstep whose ex-colonial subjects are either As long ago as 1820 Canning talked instead of relying on American money Arabs or Muslims. Other states with of the New Worid redressing the balance and firepower. close ties to the Arabs are Spain and of the Old. A century later the US At the same time America's global Greece. In advocating appeasement of affected the destinies of Europe for good perspective is r1ia"rr;-- ' gj the Arabs, France and her European as well as ill. confreres are guilty of a profound error of In 1918 when the Germans, having judgment. Accommodation can only be knocked Russia out of the war, mounted achieved by a process of give and take, their 'final push' in the West, their but the notion of compromise is quite offensive was blunted by the arrival of a alien to the Arab mindset. In Hanan million US soldiers at the fi-ont. Then Ashrawi's words, "we are an all or having helped win the war America nothing people." This is no idle boast. aborted the peace by staying out of the c5^oo3 The Palestinian leadership rejected both League of Nations and compounded the 1 the 1936 Peel Partition Plan of 1936 and offence by calling in its postwar loans c. ^^^ilCb, the UN Partition Plan of 1947. Today precipitately Washington's lurch into th^ oo may well conclude that it needs to Arafat lays claim to Jerusalem as the self-centred isolationism helped push co-operate with Russia in neutralising third holiest site of Islam though he Europe into depression, Fascism and the threat the Afghan-based Islamic cannot adduce any archaeological or *ar. Thereafter it embarked on a steep terrorist Bin Laden poses alike to the documentary proof of the Prophet learning curve. Besides contributing Gulf Emirates and to the chain of secular Mohammed's alleged links to the city. to the defeat of Nazism, it acted as Muslim successor states - Uzbekistan, The medieval Papacy was much given midwife at the birth of the United Tajikistan - to the USSR. to rhetoric about the ecclesia militans Nations and helped resuscitate Europe Within this general realignment of turning into the ecclesia triumphans. by means of the Marshall Plan and the forces it is likely that the ongoing process A similar triumphalism characterises creation of NATO. of European integration will engender a Islam in its own Middle Ages. Fuelled by Those shots in the arm for an more closely harmonised foreign and oil money, imbued with fanatical faith and Enfeebled continent were instrumental defence policy. Closer European aided by terror, the fundamentalists are "1 containing Soviet expansion and integration is not only an explosive issue gaining ground in the one billion-strong guaranteeing half a century of peace and for the British electorate, it also poses Muslim world. Unprecedented prosperity for the new challenges for embattled Israel. A Even so the Crescent, like the Cross <^ountries of Western Europe. By the end more unified Europe must be a positive before it, can never triumph globally and '^f the millennium the implosion of the development since (pace Austria) it for one simple reason: a closed system of Soviet Empire created an entirely new cannot allow xenophobic racism to pit thought is inimical to the quantum leaps Constellation of power from which the one member state against another. of the mind that lie behind all scientific, Americans are deducing a new set of Conversely, though, a European entity technical and industrial as well as Priorities. When Milosevic's serial uncoupled from the United States military advance. If that was true in the Balkan wars elicited a slow response threatens to be biased against Israel machine age it is doubly true in the age of ^om neighboiuing Western Europe, irrespective of the merit of any given information technology and Star Wars. m^smM i Wallenberg's execution confirmed After sixty glorious years Swedish war hero and Budapest posted as First Secretary to their In mid-1941 the war that had been raging for nearly two years changed diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, in January embassy in Nazi-occupied Budapest its character 1945 set out to meet the commander of from where Hungary's entire Jewish The Nazi invasion of Russia inflicted the victorious Soviet army, Marshal population were rapidly being deported fresh misery on millions, but also Malinovsky, but was arrested by his His energetic efforts to organise 32 saf« finally saved Britain the threat of troops near Debrecen in eastern houses under the Swedish flag and to invasion. Alongside this dramatic Himgary. Nothing further was ever issue Schutzpdsse saved as many aS transformation on the world stage, a micro-event of considerable heard of him either by neutral Sweden or 100,000 of the 230,000 Jews remaining significance to thousands of Jewish the western Alhes. In 1944 and 1945 he in the city. refugees in Britain took place: was reputed to have saved thousands of Alexander Yakovlev, former aide to the AJR constituted itself. Soon after, Hungarian Jews from deportation to Mikhail Gorbachev in the promotion of the fledgling organisation put out its Auschwitz. Evidence now being glasnost, now in charge of the archives first circular revealed from the archives of Stalin's documenting Stahn's terror, has said that There were to be eleven such secret police puts the issue of Wallenberg was arrested, made a 'bulletins' in all before the first issue of Wallenberg's fate beyond any reasonable the fully conceived AJR Information prisoner of war, convicted on charges saw the light of day in January 1946. doubt; he was executed by the Soviet of being an American spy and executed Since then a grand total of six regime in the Lubyanka prison in 1947. It was anticipated that he would hundred and sixty issues has A member of Sweden's leading soon be officially rehabilitated by appeared without a single month's banking and business family, in 1944 President Putin. gap. This unbroken record of continuity has gone hand in hand - aged only 32, Raoul Wallenberg was RDC particularly latterly - with a readiness to change. The journal started featuring photographs in 1983 and changed both typeface and layout that same year and again in 1991. East Now we are embarking on an even bigger - threefold (I) - change. The publication previously known as AJR End Information has transmogrified into the AJR Journal. It has simultaneously echoes assumed a conventional A4 format, and made the leap from black-and- What Remains? white to add the use of a second East End Exhibition colour At the same time I would like to assure my traditional reader experiencing 'the shock of the new' that we remain committed to the Storyteller, Yiddish singer and violinist impoverished streets their home^ core values on which our Founding Meyer Bogdanski admires a photograph Entitled What Remains? the exhibition Fathers based the organisation sixty years ago. of himself taken by Sam Tanner, left, on was opened by East End aficionado an^ Richard Grunberger display at the Jewish Museum, Finchley, historian Prof William Fishman, right in an exhibition on the Jewish East End, For the immigrants just off the boats A new potential then and now. The East End, once the "work and survival were a tougl' vibrant heart of Jewish life in London, assignment", he said, tailoring, cabinet A new name, a contemporary design now largely peopled by later immigrant and boot making being the staple tradeS' and some change of emphasis in content, is intended to open up groups, has a few siu^ving synagogues He recalled the community's response opportunities to extend the and a core of mostly elderly Jews to the attacks of Sir Oswald Mosley's readership of our magazine to a representing the hard-working and fascists prior to the outbreak of Worlfi younger generation. We are observant Yiddish-speaking community War 11. The exhibition, with associate^ confident that the children of from Russia, the Baltic States, Poland lectiures, continues imtil April. refugees, in common with and Romania that fled poverty and prospective readers within Jewry in Ronald Channin^ general, increasingly will appreciate a pogroms a centiuy ago to make these monthly potpourri of thoughtful and well-informed commentary on AJR Journal Personnel matters of concern touching Britain, Richard Grunberger Editor-in-Chief Ronald Channing Executive Editor Marion Koebner Staff Reporter Andrea Goodmaker Dept Secretary & Advertising Co-ordinator Europe and beyond Gloria Tessler Arts Correspondent Dr Anthony Grenville Historical Researcher Ronald Channing Katia Gould Editorial Adviser Gerta Regensburger & Lionel Simmonds Proof Readers AJR Journal, 1 Hampstead Gate, la Frognal, London NW3 6AL Tel: 020 7431 6161 Fax: 020 7431 8454 e-mail: [email protected] From pilpul to palimony NEWTONS Pilpul is a process of dialecrical Leading Hampstead Solicitors reasoning much practised in yeshivot. Since it can easily degenerate into over- 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, subtle hairsplitting the rabbinical London NWS SNB authorities have long tried to curb its • All English legal work more extreme forms.