On Thursday night at the Center for Jewish History in New York, a panel spoke about Jews as “culture brokers” in the publishing business, and Jason Epstein, who co-founded The New York Review of Books, told about his relationship with Benzion Netanyahu, the late father of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Benzion died earlier this year.
Epstein related that at the instance of Herman Wouk, he first published a book of letters written by Benzion’s son Jonathan, who was killed in Israel’s 1976 Entebbe raid, and after that he worked with Benzion on his masterwork, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain. Epstein:
So we became very close friends… [And that book] really has changed forever how the Spanish Inquisition will now be seen by scholars… His book is recognized as the classic account. So I came to know him very very well. I admired him enormously. Even though we disagreed completely on politics and Israel. He was a so-called revisionist Zionist, he was a disciple of Jabotinsky. And he thought the only way Israel could survive is, well he once told me, by killing all the Arabs. I thought that may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but despite that, it didn’t affect my friendship, my admiration, indeed my love for him.
And I came to see what Bibi Netanyahu’s situation was because the old man dedicated that masterwork not to the three sons, he had three of them beside Bibi and Jonathan, but only to Bibi [actually Jonathan; see below], and he did a very touching passage to accompany that dedication. And he said nothing about Bibi in it, and one of the Bibi’s problems obviously is that his father never, never held him in the kind of esteem in which he held his older brother. To me that explains a lot about what’s going on in Israeli politics…
Epstein referred to his political differences with Benzion in this piece for Tablet, but didn’t quote him on killing all the Arabs, though he did state that Benzion regarded the Arabs as “implacable enemies.”
The dedication of the Spanish Inquisition volume, at Amazon, is:
This book is dedicated with unrelieved grief to the memory of my beloved son JONATHAN who fell while leading the rescue force at Entebbe on July 4, 1976.
Beware of the politician with something to prove to dear old Dad. See George W. Bush, John Kennedy, John McCain, George Allen and now Bibi.
And isn’t it odd that, regardless of how the name “Bibi” is received in Israel, a man who grew up in the U.S. would accept it as a nickname?
genocide?
the warsaw ghetto, gaza
arabs?
well, whadayaknowwho’dathunkit, but it’s turned out that they’re the chosen people
with jerusalem?
the landing field
destiny
settler?
conquistador, slavemaster
palestinian?
indian, slave
equality?
blessed be
Is there a historian in the room!? We need a historian!
My question is if Benzion Netanyahu was a good historian or a maniac. I think that the main point of his historical career is wrong: that Spanish Inquisition was a racist anti-Semitic outfit. To me, it was an outfit dedicated to eradication of heresy among Spanish Christians and if it focused on a particular group “disproportionally”, it was when they had well founded reasons (namely, the presence of heretics). And many groups of conversos survived for hundreds of years harboring Jewish non-Christian beliefs and practices which was making them heretic. Thus one can explain their behavior assuming that this was a professional and ethical organization that had rules of ethics and their profession which are quite alien to us today.
Such recognition of “alien ethical systems” can allow to understand better what is happening today. In particular, stamping out heresy is a phenomenon that exists also today, including the organized Jewish community. So when I say that the professional ethics of the Inquisition is alien to us I do not mean “all people living in XXI century”.
That’s liberal Zionism for you.
Oh, I disagree with him but after all, who cares if he calls for the complete murder of all the Arabs in a massive holocaust? After all, I love the man.
To me, Epstein’s not different than a facist historian like David Irving. Epstein claims to have political differences but I doubt that. If he did, he would never admire or even ‘love‘ a man who is advocating total annihilation of another race.
He basically befriended a Jewish Nazi of the worst kind and he still effuses warm words about him. And that this guy gets to be called a liberal is pretty shocking. Imagine if you had a white gentile ‘liberal’ who gushed about a neo-Nazi intellectual, who advocated the total annilhilation for all the Jews, as someone who he ‘loves’. Do you think he’d be able to have a career in the media or even be allowed to be called a liberal?
Stunning confession by Epstein and an even greater shock to witness the total absence of reactions by the others.