talmon -- xx - index - 2_= 09/05/2015 08:45 Page i Isaiah Berlin, in his “Tribute to a Friend”, wrote about Talmon, “No matter what his theoretical interests were, or the topics on which he was lecturing or writing, his deepest concern was with the Jewish people, its history, its religious, moral and social values, its place among the nations, its future in Israel and the diaspora.” These words capture the essence of Talmon’s political essays presented in Mission and Testimony. The historian Jacob L.Talmon (1916–1980) was chosen by an international committee of scholars as one of the twenty major histo- rians of the twentieth century. It declared that “his historiography was a convincing apologia for human freedom.” Talmon owes his fame to his magnum opus, the trilogy that began with The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (1952), continued with Political Messianism(1960) and concluded with The Myth of the Nationand the Vision of Revolution (1981). These works have been translated into many languages and have influenced many statesmen and intel- lectuals. Talmon’s essays on the destiny of the Jewish people and the State of Israel in the modern era are collected here under the apposite title he had accorded to one of his articles on modern anti-Semitism: Mission and Testimony. Part I, “The Nature of Jewish History”, deals with the Jewish presence in history, the universal significance of Jewish history, and the impact of Jewish intellectuals. Part II, “From Anti-Semitism to the Holocaust”, concerns the anti-Semitic climate of opinion that led to the Holocaust. Part III, “Israel between War and Peace”, depicts the regional and global situation of the State of Israel. In Part IV, “Intellectual and Political Debates”, Talmon confronts intellectuals and statesmen such as Arnold Toynbee and Menachem Begin. Part V, “Profiles in History”, depicts the intellectual portraits of the historian Lewis Namier and the physicist and champion of human rights Andrei Sakharov. David Ohana is a full professor of history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His areas of research include the intellectual and cultural history of modern Europe, Mediterranean studies, and Israeli identity. He studied under Jacob Talmon at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and was a fellow at the Sorbonne, Harvard and Berkeley. Among his many books are the trilogy The Nihilist Order (Sussex Academic Press) and The Origins of Israeli Mythology (Cambridge University Press). i talmon -- xx - index - 2_= 09/05/2015 08:45 Page ii talmon -- xx - index - 2_= 09/05/2015 08:45 Page iii talmon -- xx - index - 2_= 09/05/2015 08:45 Page iv Introduction and organization of this volume, copyright © David Ohana, 2015; individual chapter copyrights are detailed in the Acknowledgements. The right of David Ohana to be identified as Editor of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2015. SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS PO Box 139 Eastbourne BN24 9BP, UK and simultaneously in the United States of America and Canada All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jacob L. Talmon : mission and testimony : political essays / foreword by Isaiah Berlin ; edited by David Ohana. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-84519-741-4 (pb : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-78284-211-8 (e-pub) ISBN 978-1-78284-212-5 (e-mobi) ISBN 978-1-78284-213-2 (e-pdf) 1. Talmon, J. L. (Jacob Leib), 1916–1980. 2. Jewish historians—Israel. 3. Jews—History—Historiography. I. Ohana, David, editor. DS115.9.T35J33 2015 956.940072’02—dc23 2015006455 This e-book text has been prepared for electronic viewing. Some features, including tables and figures, might not display as in the print version, due to electronic conversion limitations and/or copyright strictures. talmon -- xx - index - 2_= 07/05/2015 11:08 Page v Contents Acknowledgements viii Foreword: Isaiah Berlin – A Tribute to My Friend ix Introduction: The Historian as an Intellectual 1 David Ohana Jacob L. Talmon’s Political Essays Part One The Nature of Jewish History Prophetism and Ideology – The Jewish Presence in History 33 (The Jerusalem Quarterly, Number 3, Spring 1977). The Nature of Jewish History – Its Universal Significance 47 (Published by the Hillel Foundation, London, 1957. The lecture was delivered at the Gustave Tuck Theatre, University College, London, on October 17, 1956, under the chairmanship of the Rt. Hon. Viscount Samuel). The Jewish Intellectuals in Politics – New Factors in an 76 Ancient Tradition (Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, Vol. XIV, No. 39, September 24, 1965). Jews between “Right” and “Left” 93 (Midstream, Summer 1958; a translation from Hebrew, Ha’aretz, September 25, 1957). Suggestion for Isolating the Jewish Component in World 120 History (Midstream, March 1972). v talmon -- xx - index - 2_= 07/05/2015 11:08 Page vi CONTENTS Part Two From Anti-Semitism to the Holocaust Mission and Testimony – The Universal Significance 149 of Modern Anti-Semitism (Essays on Human Rights: Contemporary Issues and Jewish Perspectives, ed. David Sidorsky, 1979, Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society of America, pp. 336–359). The New Anti-Semitism 172 (The New Republic: A Journal of Politics and the Arts, September 18, 1976). European History – Seedbed of the Holocaust 186 (Midstream, May 1973. The lecture was delivered at the Yad Vashem symposium – “The Holocaust and the Rebirth of Israel,” Jerusalem, April 19, 1973). Part Three Israel between War and Peace For Total Peace in the Middle East 221 (International Problems, the quarterly of the Israeli Institute of International Affairs; as “Political Doctrine and Problems of Developing Countries,” Jerusalem, Nov.–Dec. 1967, VI /3–4, pp. 60–68). Israel and the Arab World 233 (The Jewish Quarterly17/ 3–4 (63–64), Winter 1969). Domestic and International Politics – A Presentation 254 (Congress Bi-Weekly, 8/2–3, February 26, 1971, 39–42: following the 8th Annual American–Israel Dialogue, on “Reciprocal Rights and Responsibilities of American and Israeli Jews”). Reflections of an Historian in Jerusalem 262 (Encounter, May 1976). Sadat’s Peace Initiative and Its Aftermath 279 (The Jewish Quarterly26/1 (95), Spring 1978). vi talmon -- xx - index - 2_= 07/05/2015 11:08 Page vii CONTENTS Part Four Intellectual and Political Debates The Argument between Arabs and Jews: An Exchange 287 between Arnold Toynbee and J.L. Talmon (Encounter, October 1967). An Open Letter to the Minister of Information 300 (Ma’ariv, September 1969; translated into English and published as A Letter to his Establishment by an Israeli Intellectual by the Arab Information Center, New York, 1969). The Mideast War – A Rejoinder 311 (The New York Review, January 24, 1974. In the November 15 issue appeared a statement on the Mideast War signed by twenty-one members of The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In the November 29 issue Prof. Daniel Amit of The Hebrew University replied in the form of an open letter to Prof. Jacob Talmon, one of the signers of the statement. This essay is Talmon’s rejoinder to Amit). “The Homeland is in Danger” – An Open Letter to 317 Menahem Begin (Ha’aretz, 31 March 1980). Part Five Profiles in History The Ordeal of Sir Lewis Namier – The Man, the Historian, 345 the Jew (Commentary33, 1962). Andrei Sakharov’s Ordeal 360 (Midstream,February 1977. This essay was presented as an address to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities at a celebration in Sakharov’s honor when he was awarded the Nobel Prize.). Bibliography of J. L. Talmon 375 Index 376 vii talmon -- xx - index - 2_= 07/05/2015 11:08 Page viii Acknowledgements All chapters in the Political Essays section are copyright © The Estate of the Late Jacob L. Talmon or are in the Public Domain, except where rights holders are alerted below. The Ordeal of Sir Lewis Namier – The Man, the Historian, the Jew. reprinted from COMMENTARY, March 1962, by permission; copyright © by Commentary, Inc. Mission and Testimony – The Universal Significance of Modern Anti-Semitism, from The Unique and the Universal by J. L. Talmon, published by Secker and Walburg. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited. The New Anti-Semitism, September 18, 1976. Reprinted by permission of The New Republic. The publishers apologize for any errors or omissions in the above list, and have made substantive efforts to locate rights holders. The publishers would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in the next edition or reprint of this book. viii talmon -- xx - index - 2_= 07/05/2015 11:08 Page ix A Tribute to My Friend Isaiah Berlin I am glad of this opportunity of saying a few words about Jacob Talmon, to whom I was bound by many years of warm friendship. I first met him when he came to see me in Oxford in, I think, 1947, on the suggestion of his then teacher, Professor Harold Laski of the London School of Economics. He wished to discuss movements in eighteenth-century Western thought which, in his opinion, had not been correctly interpreted by most writers on the subject. I realised, before the end of the first hour, that I was listening to an original thinker, a very lively talker, with interesting ideas resting on a solid basis of erudition, that he was imaginative, warm-hearted, passion- ately anxious to convey his vision of the French thinkers of the Enlightenment and the political consequences of their ideas. I pressed him to stay for longer than he had intended, and he readily agreed. We spent the rest of the day discussing what afterwards became the central theme of his most famous book, Totalitarian Democracy, and since my ideas were tending in the same direction, I found that talking with him was highly stimulating and intellectu- ally delightful. The sympathetic accord established between us on that first meeting remained undisturbed from then on. The major thrusts of his investigations went into two basic yet parallel directions. His first effort was to trace authoritarian and then totalitarian socialism, initially among parties and factions of eighteenth- and nineteenth- century France and elsewhere in Europe. Inevitably his scholarship turned to the post 1917 Communist régimes. But above all he bent his mind to the parallels he revealed between the thought of Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Just and their conceptions of liberty and fraternity. On the one hand he uncovered the role of revolu- tionary élites in the social order for which they were fighting, and on the other, the theory and practice of Marx and Marxists in contradistinction to those of liberals and socialists of a more liber-