Israel Shahak - Revision history

David at 19:33, 8 December 2025

2025-12-08T19:33:00Z

David: /* Critical reception */

2025-12-08T09:28:44Z

Critical reception

David: /* Writings */

2025-12-08T09:28:13Z

Writings

David: /* Alleged telephone incident */

2025-12-08T09:28:02Z

Alleged telephone incident

David: /* Writings */

2025-12-08T09:27:50Z

Writings

David: /* Author */

2025-12-08T09:27:30Z

Author

David at 09:26, 8 December 2025

2025-12-08T09:26:29Z

David at 09:19, 8 December 2025

2025-12-08T09:19:32Z

David: /* Jewish History, Jewish Religion */

2025-12-08T09:16:51Z

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

David: /* The Jewish religion and its attitude to non-Jews - 1981 */

2025-12-07T22:32:46Z

The Jewish religion and its attitude to non-Jews - 1981

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 In 1943, the Nazis sent the Shahak family to the [[Poniatowa concentration camp]], to the west of Lublin, where his father died. Fortuitously, the ten-year-old boy and his mother escaped from the Poniatowa camp, and returned to Warsaw; yet, within a year, whilst emptying the city of Jews, the Nazis recaptured Israel and his mother, and imprisoned them in the [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp]], where they survived for 2 years,<ref name="Pallis">Elfi Pallis [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/jul/06/guardianobituaries.physicalsciences Israel Shahak Belsen survivor who attacked Israel's treatment of Palestinians] [[The Guardian]] 6 July 2001</ref><ref name="O'Dwyer">Thomas O'Dwyer, [https://www.haaretz.com/scourge-of-everyone-1.63252 Scourge of Everyone], [[Haaretz]] 12 July 2001}}</ref>| until the camp and its inmates were liberated in 1945 by the [[British Army]]. At age 13, in 1946, he re-examined the [[Existence of God|idea of God's existence]] and concluded that evidence for the theory was lacking.<ref name="Pallis"/> As [[Displaced persons camp|displaced persons]], mother and son [[Aliyah Bet|managed to emigrate]] to the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]], where Shahak's application to join a [[kibbutz]] was denied, because he was judged to be physically too slender.<ref name="Pallis"/>
-Post-war, the twelve-year-old Israel worked and studied and supported his mother, whose health had deteriorated in Bergen-Belsen. After a [[Judaism|religious Jewish education]] at boarding school in the village of [[Kfar Hassidim]], Israel and his mother moved to the city of [[Tel Aviv]]. Upon graduation from secondary school, Shahak [[Conscription in Israel|served]] in the [[Israel Defense Forces]] (IDF). After the military service, he earned a [[doctorate]] in chemistry, at [[Hebrew University]].<ref name="Pallis"/>
+Post-war, the twelve-year-old Israel worked and studied and supported his mother, whose health had deteriorated in Bergen-Belsen. After a religious Jewish education at boarding school in the village of [[Kfar Hassidim]], Israel and his mother moved to the city of Tel Aviv. Upon graduation from secondary school, Shahak served in the [[Israel Defense Forces]] (IDF). After the military service, he earned a doctorate in chemistry, at [[Hebrew University]].<ref name="Pallis"/>
-In the course of his professional career as a scientist, Shahak's work in [[organic chemistry]] produced science about [[organic compounds]] of the element [[fluorine]] (F), contributed to cancer research, for which he gained an international reputation<ref name="O'Dwyer"/> and included posting as an assistant to [[Ernst David Bergmann]], the [[Nuclear physics|nuclear physicist]] who was chairman (1952) of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC).<ref name="Pallis"/><ref name="Adams"/> In 1961, Shahak pursued post-doctoral studies at [[Stanford University]], in the U.S.; in 1963, he returned to Israel, where he became a popular lecturer and researcher in chemistry, at Hebrew University; moreover, by 1965, Shahak actively participated in the Israeli politics of the day.{{sfn|Hitchens|2001}}
+In the course of his professional career as a scientist, Shahak's work in organic chemistry produced science about organic compounds of the element fluorine (F), contributed to cancer research, for which he gained an international reputation<ref name="O'Dwyer"/> and included posting as an assistant to [[Ernst David Bergmann]], the nuclear physicist who was chairman (1952) of the [[Israel Atomic Energy Commission]] (IAEC).<ref name="Pallis"/><ref name="Adams"/> In 1961, Shahak pursued post-doctoral studies at [[Stanford University]], in the U.S.; in 1963, he returned to Israel, where he became a popular lecturer and researcher in chemistry, at Hebrew University; moreover, by 1965, Shahak actively participated in the Israeli politics of the day.<ref name="Hitchens">[[Christopher Hitchens]], [http://www.thenation.com/article/israel-shahak-1933-200 Israel Shahak, 1933-2001] [[The Nation]] |url= 23 July 2001.</ref>
-In 1990, the academic Shahak retired from the faculty of Hebrew University, because of poor health ([[diabetes mellitus]]) and greater interest in research work in other fields of intellectual enquiry.{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} For most of his adult life, Shahak resided in the [[Rehavia]] neighborhood in [[West Jerusalem]]; at the age of 68 years, he died of diabetic complications, and was buried in the [[Givat Shaul]] cemetery.<ref name="Pallis"/>
+In 1990, the academic Shahak retired from the faculty of Hebrew University, because of poor health (diabetes mellitus) and greater interest in research work in other fields of intellectual enquiry.{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} For most of his adult life, Shahak resided in the [[Rehavia]] neighborhood in [[West Jerusalem]]; at the age of 68 years, he died of diabetic complications, and was buried in the [[Givat Shaul]] cemetery.<ref name="Pallis"/>
-Shahak had a deep affinity with [[Spinoza]]:{{sfn|Hitchens|2001|loc="He had no heroes and no dogmas and no party allegiances. If he admitted to any intellectual model, it would have been Spinoza."}} he always packed a copy of [[Ethics (Spinoza)|The Ethics]] in his suitcase for reading during his periodic stints of service in the [[Israel Defense Forces]],{{sfn|Cooley|2015|p=217}} and had been writing a book on the philosopher before his death.<ref name="Pallis"/> His activities as a [[intellectual|public intellectual]] fighting for human rights causes and for a secular state earned him a reputation for controversy, and frequent abuse. He was regularly spat on,<ref name="Pallis"/> frequently given death threats,<ref name="Pallis"/> and decried variously as an Israel basher, [[self-hating Jew]], traitor, and [[enemy of the people]].
+Shahak had a deep affinity with [[Spinoza]]
 :He was known by other names: Israel basher, self-hating Jew, traitor, enemy of the people. The entire lexicon of standard if unimaginative Israeli abuse was thrown at him, accompanied by calls to have him dismissed from the university or barred from leaving the country (to prevent him attacking it abroad). […] When he was branded (like many Jewish critics of Israel) with the old cliche of 'self-hating Jew', he always responded with his first-hand knowledge of the price of being a Jew. 'That is a Nazi expression. The Nazis called Germans who defended Jewish rights self-hating Germans.<ref name="O'Dwyer"/>
 ==Politics==
 === Public intellectual ===
-In the late 1950s, as a citizen of Israel, Shahak became politically engaged on hearing a comment of [[David Ben-Gurion]] that, with the [[Suez War]] (29 October 1956 – 7 November 1956), the State of Israel was fighting to achieve "the kingdom of David and Solomon".{{sfn|Hitchens|2001}}
+In the late 1950s, as a citizen of Israel, Shahak became politically engaged on hearing a comment of [[David Ben-Gurion]] that, with the [[Suez War]] (29 October 1956 – 7 November 1956), the State of Israel was fighting to achieve "the kingdom of David and Solomon".<ref name="Hitchens"/>
 In the 1960s he joined the Israeli League Against Religious Coercion.<ref name="Warschawski"/> In 1965, he began political activism against "Classical Judaism" and Zionism;{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} and wrote a letter to ''[[Haaretz]]'' about having witnessed an Orthodox Jew "refusing to let his phone be used on the Sabbath to help a non-Jew who had collapsed nearby"; in Israel, Shahak's complaint began a long-running debate about the attitudes (religious and cultural) of [[Orthodox Judaism]] towards gentiles.{{sfn|Rickman|2009}}
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 In the book review of a festschrift in honour of [[Elmer Berger (rabbi)|Rabbi Elmer Berger]] ''Anti-Zionism: Analytical Reflections'' (1988), [[Sheldon Richman]] characterized Shahak's interpretation of Zionism as viewing it as an [[atavistic]] reaction against the European Enlightenment's individualism that strove to revive the suffocating world of the Jewish ghetto. The founders of the movement did not believe Jews could lead a normal existence in democratic societies. In this sense, for Shahak, Zionism can be thought of as "a mirror image of anti-Semitism," in that, in common with antisemites, Zionists considered Jews to be aliens who must be quarantined from the rest of the world, a viewpoint Shahak read as capitulating to European antisemitism. For Richman, Shahak's analysis shed light on the tragic consequences that followed upon the establishment of Israel, as Arabs were swept away to forge a state for Jews alone.{{sfn|Richman|1989}}
-In letters published in the ''Ha'aretz'' and ''[[Kol Ha'ir]]'' newspapers, Shahak criticized the political hypocrisy demonstrated by the radical Left in their uncritical support of the Palestinian nationalist movements.<ref name="Warschawski"/> In his obituary of Shahak, [[Christopher Hitchens]] said that Shahak's house was "a library of information about the human rights of the oppressed", and that:{{sfn|Hitchens|2001}}{{efn|Hitchens acknowledged a personal debt to Shahak, one of several people who "had to undergo considerable intellectual trial and evince notable courage, in order to break with the faith of their tribes", for having introduced him to the thinking of Spinoza.{{sfn|Hitchens|2011|p=285}}}}
+In letters published in the ''Ha'aretz'' and ''[[Kol Ha'ir]]'' newspapers, Shahak criticized the political hypocrisy demonstrated by the radical Left in their uncritical support of the Palestinian nationalist movements.<ref name="Warschawski"/> In his obituary of Shahak, [[Christopher Hitchens]] said that Shahak's house was "a library of information about the human rights of the oppressed", and that: Hitchens acknowledged a personal debt to Shahak, one of several people who "had to undergo considerable intellectual trial and evince notable courage, in order to break with the faith of their tribes", for having introduced him to the thinking of Spinoza.<ref name="Hitchens"/>
 <blockquote>The families of prisoners, the staff of closed and censored publications, the victims of eviction and confiscation — none were ever turned away. I have met influential "civil society" Palestinians alive today who were protected as students when Israel was a professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University; from him they learned never to generalize about Jews. And they respected him, not just for his consistent stand against discrimination, but also because — he never condescended to them. He detested nationalism and religion, and made no secret of his contempt for the grasping Arafat entourage. But, as he once put it to me, "I will now only meet with Palestinian spokesmen when we are out of the country. I have some severe criticisms to present to them. But I cannot do this while they are living under occupation, and I can 'visit' them as a privileged citizen."</blockquote>
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 Shahak died of diabetes in July 2001 and was buried in [[Giv'at Shaul]] cemetery, Jerusalem.{{sfn|Katzman|2001}} His death was the occasion of tribute and criticism; the [[Bar-Ilan University]] historian Haim Genizi, said that "Shahak's extreme anti-Israeli statements were welcomed by the [[PLO]], and [were] widely circulated in pro–Arab circles", in detriment to the interests of the State of Israel.{{sfn|Genizi|2002|p=94}} [[Gore Vidal]] said Shahak was "the latest, if not the last, of the great prophets",{{sfn|Vidal|2002|p=4}} regarding the influence of religion upon the [[Civil law (legal system)|civil law]] of society. [[Norton Mezvinsky]], said that his friend and collaborator was "a rare intellectual giant and a superior humanist"; in that vein, [[Edward Said]] said that Shahak was "a very brave man who should be honored for his services to humanity."{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} An obituary in ''Haaretz'' called him "the scourge of nationalists".{{sfn|Katzman|2001}}
-[[Christopher Hitchens]] considered Shahak a "dear friend and comrade... [who was] a brilliant and devoted student of the archaeology of Jerusalem and Palestine", who, "during his chairmanship of the [[Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights]], set a personal example that would be very difficult to emulate."{{sfn|Hitchens|2001}} [[Alexander Cockburn]], writing in [[Antiwar.com]], described Shahak the intellectual, the "tireless translator and erudite foot-noter... a singular man, an original."{{sfn|Cockburn|2001}} Allan C. Brownfeld, of the [[American Council for Judaism]], recalled a humanist who actively opposed "racism and oppression in any form and in any country"; that Shahak possessed a "genuinely prophetic Jewish voice, one which ardently advocated democracy and human rights."{{sfn|Brownfeld|2001}} In an obituary, the journalist Elfi Pallis called Shahak essentially "an old-fashioned liberal" in principle, thought, and action.<ref name="Pallis"/> Moreover, [[Michel Warschawski]] said that Israel Shahak was "the last Israeli liberal", who was "above all, one of the last philosophers of the eighteenth-century school of enlightenment, rationalism, and liberalism, in the American meaning of the concept."<ref name="Warschawski"/>
+[[Christopher Hitchens]] considered Shahak a "dear friend and comrade... [who was] a brilliant and devoted student of the archaeology of Jerusalem and Palestine", who, "during his chairmanship of the [[Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights]], set a personal example that would be very difficult to emulate."<ref name="Hitchens"/> [[Alexander Cockburn]], writing in [[Antiwar.com]], described Shahak the intellectual, the "tireless translator and erudite foot-noter... a singular man, an original."{{sfn|Cockburn|2001}} Allan C. Brownfeld, of the [[American Council for Judaism]], recalled a humanist who actively opposed "racism and oppression in any form and in any country"; that Shahak possessed a "genuinely prophetic Jewish voice, one which ardently advocated democracy and human rights."{{sfn|Brownfeld|2001}} In an obituary, the journalist Elfi Pallis called Shahak essentially "an old-fashioned liberal" in principle, thought, and action.<ref name="Pallis"/> Moreover, [[Michel Warschawski]] said that Israel Shahak was "the last Israeli liberal", who was "above all, one of the last philosophers of the eighteenth-century school of enlightenment, rationalism, and liberalism, in the American meaning of the concept."<ref name="Warschawski"/>
 ==Publications==
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 *{{Cite book |title=The Holocaust, Israel, and Canadian Protestant Churches |last=Genizi |first=Haim |year=2002 |publisher=[[McGill-Queen's Press]] |url=https://archive.org/details/holocaustisr_geni_2002_000_7272254 |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/holocaustisr_geni_2002_000_7272254/page/n111 94] |isbn=978-0-773-57039-9}}
 *{{Cite book |chapter=Forward |last=Hitchens |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hitchens |year=1997 |title=Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies |publisher=[[Pluto Press]] |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZsIzQ9mDLXsC |isbn=978-0-745-31151-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/opensecrets00isra}}
-*{{Cite news |title=Israel Shahak, 1933-2001 |last=Hitchens |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hitchens |magazine=[[The Nation]] |url=http://www.thenation.com/article/israel-shahak-1933-200 |date=23 July 2001}}{{Dead link|date=November 2023|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}
 *{{Cite book |title=Hitch-22: A Memoir |last=Hitchens |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hitchens |year=2010 |publisher=[[Hachette (publisher)|Hachette UK]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BS3i-Mz3I_UC&pg=PT351 |isbn=978-0-446-56896-8}}
 *{{Cite book |title=God is Not Great |last=Hitchens |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hitchens |year=2011 |publisher=[[Atlantic Books]] |url=https://archive.org/details/godisnotgreathow0000hitc_h5m9 |isbn=978-0-771-041433}}

@@ Line 90: / Line 90: @@
 [[Samuel Heilman]] writing for the ''[[Middle East Studies Association of North America|Review of Middle East Studies]]'' gave a negative review and proposed to dispose the book "into the same dustbin as the infamous anti-Jewish tract and fraud, [[the Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Heilman|first=Samuel|date=2001|title=Review of Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, (Pluto Middle Eastern Series)|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23063425|journal=Middle East Studies Association Bulletin|volume=35|issue=1|pages=112–113|doi=10.1017/S0026318400041997 |jstor=23063425 |s2cid=164310024 |issn=0026-3184|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
 ==Critical reception==
 As a public intellectual, Israel Shahak was accused by Zionists of fabricating the incidents he reported, of [[Victim blaming|blaming the victim]], of distorting the [[normative]] meaning of Jewish religious texts, and of misrepresenting Jewish belief and law.{{sfn|Jakobovits|1966}} Paul Bogdanor claimed that Shahak "regaled his audience with a stream of outrageous libels, ludicrous fabrications, and transparent hoaxes. As each successive allegation was exposed and discredited, he would simply proceed to a new invention."{{sfn|Bogdanor|2006|p=119}} Ari Alexander, co-founder of the Children of Abraham Organization for Jewish–Islamic dialogue, said that, despite the use of Shahak's works by neo-Nazis and anti-Israel organisations in Arab countries:

@@ Line 52: / Line 52: @@
 Despite the controversy, Shahak published his account of the telephone in the first chapter of ''Jewish History, Jewish Religion'' (1994), and said that "neither the Israeli, nor the [[diaspora]] rabbinical authorities ever reversed their ruling that a Jew should not violate the Sabbath in order to save the life of a Gentile. They added much sanctimonious twaddle to the effect that, if the consequence of such an act puts Jews in danger, the violation of the Sabbath is permitted, for their sake."{{sfn|Shahak|2002|pp=4–5}}
-==Writings==
 ===The Jewish religion and its attitude to non-Jews - 1981===
 This was a three part article with a long Appendix published in ''[[Khamsin]]'' a magazine published by [[Matzpen]].

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 Among the books publish by Israel Shahak are ''Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel'' (1994), co-authored by [[Norton Mezvinsky]], ''Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years'' (1994), and ''Open Secrets: Israel's Nuclear and Foreign Policies'' (1997). In the introduction to the 2004 edition of ''Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel'', the historian Mezvinsky said, "We realize that, by criticizing Jewish fundamentalism, we are criticizing a part of the past that we love. We wish that members of every human grouping would criticize their own past, even before criticizing others."{{sfn|Shahak|Mezvinsky|2004|p=xxi}}
-==Alleged telephone incident==
+===Alleged telephone incident===
 In 1965, Shahak wrote a letter to the ''[[Haaretz]]'' newspaper, about an injustice he witnessed; that letter originated "the current major debate within and outside Israel about Orthodox Jewish attitudes to non-Jews."{{sfn|Rickman|2009}} In the letter, Shahak said he witnessed an Orthodox Jew refuse the use of his telephone to call for an ambulance for a non-Jew, because it was the [[Shabbat]].{{sfn|Rickman|2009}}{{sfn|Segev|2007|pp=99–100}}{{sfn|Bogdanor|2006|p=121}}{{sfn|Boteach|2008}} Shahak added that the [[Beth din]], the rabbinical court of Jerusalem, had confirmed that the Orthodox Jew correctly understood ''[[Halakha]]'' law on [[Pikuach nefesh]] regarding non-Jews and the Sabbath, and quoted passages from a recent legal compilation.
 Consequently, the cultural matter of a religiously-denied telephone became public political discussion in the Israeli press and the Jewish press abroad, all of which directed attention to Shahak as a [[Intellectual|public intellectual]] in the cultural politics of Israel.{{sfn|Rickman|2009}}{{sfn|Segev|2007|pp=99–100}}{{sfn|Boteach|2008}} ''[[The Jewish Chronicle]]'' in London stated that "The halakha (Jewish law) abounds in such abominations ... in conflict with the humane instincts within which anyone raised in Jewish tradition is imbued."{{sfn|Rickman|2009}} In the ''[[Maariv (newspaper)|Maariv]]'' newspaper, the minister of religious affairs, Rabbi Dr. [[Zerach Warhaftig]] said that the Orthodox rabbinical ruling was correct, but quoted traditional Jewish passages that allowed a Jewish physician to save the life of a non-Jew on the Sabbath, despite not being religiously required to do so.{{sfn|Segev|2007|pp=99–100}}
-===Public controversy===
+====Public controversy====
 In 1966, Rabbi [[Immanuel Jakobovits]] disputed the veracity of Shahak's story, claiming that Israel Shahak had been compelled to admit that the incident had not occurred.{{sfn|The Times|1999}}{{sfn|Jakobovits|1966|pp=58–65}} He cited a lengthy ''[[responsa|responsum]]'', by [[Isser Yehuda Unterman]], the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, who said that "the Sabbath must be violated to save non-Jewish life no less than Jewish lives", and cited a ruling by Rabbi [[Menachem Meiri]] that Jews ''should'' desecrate the Sabbath to save a gentile's life.{{sfn|Rickman|2009}}{{sfn|Boteach|2008}}{{sfn|Schwartz|2002|p=19}}{{sfn|Jakobovits|1966|p=59}} The opinions of these rabbis derived from the book ''Noda B'Yehuda'' (''Known in Judah''), in which the 18th-century religious authority [[Yechezkel Landau]] said: "I emphatically declare that in all laws contained in the Jewish writings concerning theft, fraud, etc. no distinction is made between Jew and Gentile; that the (Talmudic) legal categories [[goy]], ''akum'' (idolater) etc., in no way apply to the people among whom we live."{{sfn|Schwartz|2002|p=19}}

@@ Line 39: / Line 39: @@
 Shahak was also active in protesting the public burning of Christian books such as occurred on 23 March 1980 when [[Yad L'Achim|''Yad Le-akhim'']], a religious organization that was at the time a beneficiary of subsidies from the [[Ministry of Religious Services|Ministry of Religion]], ceremonially incinerated hundreds of copies of the [[New Testament]] publicly in Jerusalem.{{sfn|Shahak|Mezvinsky|2004|p=23}}
-===Writings===
+==Writings==
 Among the books publish by Israel Shahak are ''Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel'' (1994), co-authored by [[Norton Mezvinsky]], ''Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years'' (1994), and ''Open Secrets: Israel's Nuclear and Foreign Policies'' (1997). In the introduction to the 2004 edition of ''Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel'', the historian Mezvinsky said, "We realize that, by criticizing Jewish fundamentalism, we are criticizing a part of the past that we love. We wish that members of every human grouping would criticize their own past, even before criticizing others."{{sfn|Shahak|Mezvinsky|2004|p=xxi}}

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 Israel Shahak was born Israel Himmelstaub, in 1933, in Warsaw, Poland, and was the youngest child of a cultured, Zionist family of [[Ashkenazi Jews]].<ref name="Adams">[http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article35445.ece Israel Shahak] Adams, Michael, [[The Independent]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20071001090906/http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article35445.ece Archive version] 26 July 2001 | archive-date=1 October 2007</ref><ref name="Ash">[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1987/01/29/the-life-of-death-an-exchange/ Israel Shahak: a voice of controversy] Ash, Timothy Garton [[The New York Review of Books]] 29 January 1987</ref> During the Second World War, the [[Occupation of Poland (1939-1945)|Nazi occupation of Poland]] (1939–1945) interned the Shahak family to the [[Warsaw Ghetto]]; yet his elder brother escaped from Poland to the United Kingdom, where he joined the [[Royal Air Force]]. Life in occupied Poland forced Shahak's mother to pay a Roman Catholic family to hide Israel, whom they returned when she could not afford their safe-keeping him from the Nazis.
-In 1943, the Nazis sent the Shahak family to the [[Poniatowa concentration camp]], to the west of Lublin, where his father died. Fortuitously, the ten-year-old boy and his mother escaped from the Poniatowa camp, and returned to Warsaw; yet, within a year, whilst emptying the city of Jews, the Nazis recaptured Israel and his mother, and imprisoned them in the [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp]], where they survived for 2 years,<ref name="Pallis"></ref>{{sfn|O'Dwyer|2001}} until the camp and its inmates were liberated in 1945 by the [[British Army]]. At age 13, in 1946, he re-examined the [[Existence of God|idea of God's existence]] and concluded that evidence for the theory was lacking.{{sfn|Pallis|2001}} As [[Displaced persons camp|displaced persons]], mother and son [[Aliyah Bet|managed to emigrate]] to the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]], where Shahak's application to join a [[kibbutz]] was denied, because he was judged to be physically too slender.{{sfn|Pallis|2001|loc="After setbacks—he was rejected as 'too weedy' when he volunteered for a kibbutz—he became a model citizen."}}
+In 1943, the Nazis sent the Shahak family to the [[Poniatowa concentration camp]], to the west of Lublin, where his father died. Fortuitously, the ten-year-old boy and his mother escaped from the Poniatowa camp, and returned to Warsaw; yet, within a year, whilst emptying the city of Jews, the Nazis recaptured Israel and his mother, and imprisoned them in the [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp]], where they survived for 2 years,<ref name="Pallis">Elfi Pallis [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/jul/06/guardianobituaries.physicalsciences Israel Shahak Belsen survivor who attacked Israel's treatment of Palestinians] [[The Guardian]] 6 July 2001</ref><ref name="O'Dwyer">Thomas O'Dwyer, [https://www.haaretz.com/scourge-of-everyone-1.63252 Scourge of Everyone], [[Haaretz]] 12 July 2001}}</ref>| until the camp and its inmates were liberated in 1945 by the [[British Army]]. At age 13, in 1946, he re-examined the [[Existence of God|idea of God's existence]] and concluded that evidence for the theory was lacking.<ref name="Pallis"/> As [[Displaced persons camp|displaced persons]], mother and son [[Aliyah Bet|managed to emigrate]] to the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]], where Shahak's application to join a [[kibbutz]] was denied, because he was judged to be physically too slender.<ref name="Pallis"/>
-Post-war, the twelve-year-old Israel worked and studied and supported his mother, whose health had deteriorated in Bergen-Belsen. After a [[Judaism|religious Jewish education]] at boarding school in the village of [[Kfar Hassidim]], Israel and his mother moved to the city of [[Tel Aviv]]. Upon graduation from secondary school, Shahak [[Conscription in Israel|served]] in the [[Israel Defense Forces]] (IDF). After the military service, he earned a [[doctorate]] in chemistry, at [[Hebrew University]].{{sfn|Pallis|2001}}
+Post-war, the twelve-year-old Israel worked and studied and supported his mother, whose health had deteriorated in Bergen-Belsen. After a [[Judaism|religious Jewish education]] at boarding school in the village of [[Kfar Hassidim]], Israel and his mother moved to the city of [[Tel Aviv]]. Upon graduation from secondary school, Shahak [[Conscription in Israel|served]] in the [[Israel Defense Forces]] (IDF). After the military service, he earned a [[doctorate]] in chemistry, at [[Hebrew University]].<ref name="Pallis"/>
-In the course of his professional career as a scientist, Shahak's work in [[organic chemistry]] produced science about [[organic compounds]] of the element [[fluorine]] (F), contributed to cancer research, for which he gained an international reputation{{sfn|O'Dwyer|2001}} and included posting as an assistant to [[Ernst David Bergmann]], the [[Nuclear physics|nuclear physicist]] who was chairman (1952) of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC).{{sfn|Pallis|2001}}<ref name="Adams"/> In 1961, Shahak pursued post-doctoral studies at [[Stanford University]], in the U.S.; in 1963, he returned to Israel, where he became a popular lecturer and researcher in chemistry, at Hebrew University; moreover, by 1965, Shahak actively participated in the Israeli politics of the day.{{sfn|Hitchens|2001}}
+In the course of his professional career as a scientist, Shahak's work in [[organic chemistry]] produced science about [[organic compounds]] of the element [[fluorine]] (F), contributed to cancer research, for which he gained an international reputation<ref name="O'Dwyer"/> and included posting as an assistant to [[Ernst David Bergmann]], the [[Nuclear physics|nuclear physicist]] who was chairman (1952) of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC).<ref name="Pallis"/><ref name="Adams"/> In 1961, Shahak pursued post-doctoral studies at [[Stanford University]], in the U.S.; in 1963, he returned to Israel, where he became a popular lecturer and researcher in chemistry, at Hebrew University; moreover, by 1965, Shahak actively participated in the Israeli politics of the day.{{sfn|Hitchens|2001}}
-In 1990, the academic Shahak retired from the faculty of Hebrew University, because of poor health ([[diabetes mellitus]]) and greater interest in research work in other fields of intellectual enquiry.{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} For most of his adult life, Shahak resided in the [[Rehavia]] neighborhood in [[West Jerusalem]]; at the age of 68 years, he died of diabetic complications, and was buried in the [[Givat Shaul]] cemetery.{{sfn|Pallis|2001}}
+In 1990, the academic Shahak retired from the faculty of Hebrew University, because of poor health ([[diabetes mellitus]]) and greater interest in research work in other fields of intellectual enquiry.{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} For most of his adult life, Shahak resided in the [[Rehavia]] neighborhood in [[West Jerusalem]]; at the age of 68 years, he died of diabetic complications, and was buried in the [[Givat Shaul]] cemetery.<ref name="Pallis"/>
-Shahak had a deep affinity with [[Spinoza]]:{{sfn|Hitchens|2001|loc="He had no heroes and no dogmas and no party allegiances. If he admitted to any intellectual model, it would have been Spinoza."}} he always packed a copy of [[Ethics (Spinoza)|The Ethics]] in his suitcase for reading during his periodic stints of service in the [[Israel Defense Forces]],{{sfn|Cooley|2015|p=217}} and had been writing a book on the philosopher before his death.{{sfn|Pallis|2001}} His activities as a [[intellectual|public intellectual]] fighting for human rights causes and for a secular state earned him a reputation for controversy, and frequent abuse. He was regularly spat on,{{sfn|Pallis|2001}} frequently given death threats,{{sfn|Pallis|2001}} and decried variously as an Israel basher, [[self-hating Jew]], traitor, and [[enemy of the people]].{{sfn|O'Dwyer|2001|loc="He was known by other names: Israel basher, self-hating Jew, traitor, enemy of the people. The entire lexicon of standard if unimaginative Israeli abuse was thrown at him, accompanied by calls to have him dismissed from the university or barred from leaving the country (to prevent him attacking it abroad). […] When he was branded (like many Jewish critics of Israel) with the old cliche of 'self-hating Jew', he always responded with his first-hand knowledge of the price of being a Jew. 'That is a Nazi expression. The Nazis called Germans who defended Jewish rights self-hating Germans.{{' "}}}}
+Shahak had a deep affinity with [[Spinoza]]:{{sfn|Hitchens|2001|loc="He had no heroes and no dogmas and no party allegiances. If he admitted to any intellectual model, it would have been Spinoza."}} he always packed a copy of [[Ethics (Spinoza)|The Ethics]] in his suitcase for reading during his periodic stints of service in the [[Israel Defense Forces]],{{sfn|Cooley|2015|p=217}} and had been writing a book on the philosopher before his death.<ref name="Pallis"/> His activities as a [[intellectual|public intellectual]] fighting for human rights causes and for a secular state earned him a reputation for controversy, and frequent abuse. He was regularly spat on,<ref name="Pallis"/> frequently given death threats,<ref name="Pallis"/> and decried variously as an Israel basher, [[self-hating Jew]], traitor, and [[enemy of the people]].
 ==Politics==
@@ Line 103: / Line 104: @@
 Shahak died of diabetes in July 2001 and was buried in [[Giv'at Shaul]] cemetery, Jerusalem.{{sfn|Katzman|2001}} His death was the occasion of tribute and criticism; the [[Bar-Ilan University]] historian Haim Genizi, said that "Shahak's extreme anti-Israeli statements were welcomed by the [[PLO]], and [were] widely circulated in pro–Arab circles", in detriment to the interests of the State of Israel.{{sfn|Genizi|2002|p=94}} [[Gore Vidal]] said Shahak was "the latest, if not the last, of the great prophets",{{sfn|Vidal|2002|p=4}} regarding the influence of religion upon the [[Civil law (legal system)|civil law]] of society. [[Norton Mezvinsky]], said that his friend and collaborator was "a rare intellectual giant and a superior humanist"; in that vein, [[Edward Said]] said that Shahak was "a very brave man who should be honored for his services to humanity."{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} An obituary in ''Haaretz'' called him "the scourge of nationalists".{{sfn|Katzman|2001}}
-[[Christopher Hitchens]] considered Shahak a "dear friend and comrade... [who was] a brilliant and devoted student of the archaeology of Jerusalem and Palestine", who, "during his chairmanship of the [[Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights]], set a personal example that would be very difficult to emulate."{{sfn|Hitchens|2001}} [[Alexander Cockburn]], writing in [[Antiwar.com]], described Shahak the intellectual, the "tireless translator and erudite foot-noter... a singular man, an original."{{sfn|Cockburn|2001}} Allan C. Brownfeld, of the [[American Council for Judaism]], recalled a humanist who actively opposed "racism and oppression in any form and in any country"; that Shahak possessed a "genuinely prophetic Jewish voice, one which ardently advocated democracy and human rights."{{sfn|Brownfeld|2001}} In an obituary, the journalist Elfi Pallis called Shahak essentially "an old-fashioned liberal" in principle, thought, and action.{{sfn|Pallis|2001}} Moreover, [[Michel Warschawski]] said that Israel Shahak was "the last Israeli liberal", who was "above all, one of the last philosophers of the eighteenth-century school of enlightenment, rationalism, and liberalism, in the American meaning of the concept."<ref name="Warschawski"/>
+[[Christopher Hitchens]] considered Shahak a "dear friend and comrade... [who was] a brilliant and devoted student of the archaeology of Jerusalem and Palestine", who, "during his chairmanship of the [[Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights]], set a personal example that would be very difficult to emulate."{{sfn|Hitchens|2001}} [[Alexander Cockburn]], writing in [[Antiwar.com]], described Shahak the intellectual, the "tireless translator and erudite foot-noter... a singular man, an original."{{sfn|Cockburn|2001}} Allan C. Brownfeld, of the [[American Council for Judaism]], recalled a humanist who actively opposed "racism and oppression in any form and in any country"; that Shahak possessed a "genuinely prophetic Jewish voice, one which ardently advocated democracy and human rights."{{sfn|Brownfeld|2001}} In an obituary, the journalist Elfi Pallis called Shahak essentially "an old-fashioned liberal" in principle, thought, and action.<ref name="Pallis"/> Moreover, [[Michel Warschawski]] said that Israel Shahak was "the last Israeli liberal", who was "above all, one of the last philosophers of the eighteenth-century school of enlightenment, rationalism, and liberalism, in the American meaning of the concept."<ref name="Warschawski"/>
 ==Publications==
@@ Line 188: / Line 189: @@
 *{{Cite news |title=Prof. Israel Shahak, Scourge of Nationalists, Laid to Rest |last=Katzman |first=Avi |newspaper=[[Haaretz]] |url=https://www.haaretz.com/1.5304784 |date=17 July 2001}}
 *{{Cite news |title=In Memoriam: Israel Shahak (1933-2001) |last=Mezvinsky |first=Norton |author-link=Norton Mezvinsky |magazine=[[Washington Report on Middle East Affairs]] |url=http://www.washingtonreport.me/2001-august-september/in-memoriam-israel-shahak-1933-2001.html |date=September 2001}}
-*{{Cite news |title=Scourge of Everyone |last=O'Dwyer |first=Thomas |newspaper=[[Haaretz]] |url=https://www.haaretz.com/scourge-of-everyone-1.63252 |date=12 July 2001}}
 *{{Cite news |title=The War of the Jews |last=Ottolenghi |first=Emanuele |author-link=Emanuele Ottolenghi |newspaper=[[The National Review]] |url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2006/09/war-jews-emanuele-ottolenghi/ |date=20 September 2006}}
-*{{Cite news |title=Israel Shahak Belsen survivor who attacked Israel's treatment of Palestinians |last=Pallis |first=Elfi |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/jul/06/guardianobituaries.physicalsciences |date=6 July 2001}}
 *{{Cite journal |title=Anti-Semitic Groups Maintain Talmud Websites |last=Posner |first=Laurence |journal=[[The Jewish Journal (Boston North)|The Jewish Journal]] |date=17 September 1999}}
 *{{Cite news |title=Review of Anti-Zionism: Analytical Reflections |last=Richman |first=Sheldon L. |magazine=[[Washington Report on Middle East Affairs]] |url=http://www.washingtonreport.me/1989-june/book-review-anti-zionism-analytical-reflections.html |date=June 1989}}

@@ Line 75: / Line 75: @@
 The journalist [[Robert Fisk]] said that the examination of [[Jewish fundamentalism]] is invaluable, because Shahak concludes that:
-<blockquote>There can no longer be any doubt that the most horrifying acts of oppression in the West Bank are motivated by Jewish religious fanaticism." He quotes from an official exhortation to religious Jewish soldiers about Gentiles, published by the Israeli army's Central Region Command, in which the chief chaplain writes: "When our forces come across civilians during a war, or in hot pursuit, or a raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of harming our forces, then, according to the ''[[Halakhah]]'' (the legal system of Classical Judaism) they may and even should be killed... In no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he makes an impression of being civilised.... In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed, and even enjoined, by the ''Halakhah'' to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good.<ref name="Fisk"></ref></blockquote>
+<blockquote>There can no longer be any doubt that the most horrifying acts of oppression in the West Bank are motivated by Jewish religious fanaticism." He quotes from an official exhortation to religious Jewish soldiers about Gentiles, published by the Israeli army's Central Region Command, in which the chief chaplain writes: "When our forces come across civilians during a war, or in hot pursuit, or a raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of harming our forces, then, according to the ''[[Halakhah]]'' (the legal system of Classical Judaism) they may and even should be killed... In no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he makes an impression of being civilised.... In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed, and even enjoined, by the ''Halakhah'' to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good.<ref name="Fisk">Robert Fisk [https://web.archive.org/web/20121025194835/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/comment-religion-in-the-middle-east-the-fundamental-problem-740098.html Religion in the Middle East: the fundamental problem], [[The Independent]] 3 December 1997</ref></blockquote>
 In his foreword to the second edition (1997), [[Edward Said]] said that Shahak was "one of the most remarkable individuals in the contemporary Middle East" who he credits with doing more to dissipate the "ideological smoke screen" of Zionism than any other single individual. He goes on to describe Shahak as "un- and anti-racist" and emphasizes Shahak's consistency in applying a single standard for infractions against human rights. Said describes Shahak's writing as "rigorous and uncompromising", often at the expense of putting things "'nicely'".<ref name=":0">Shahak, Israel. Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years. United Kingdom, Pluto Press, 1994.</ref>
@@ Line 178: / Line 178: @@
 *{{Cite journal |title=Journey out of Zionism: The Radicalization of an Israeli Pacifist |last=Davis |first=Uri |author-link=Uri Davis |journal=[[Journal of Palestine Studies]] |year=1972 |volume=1 |issue=4 |pages=59–72 |doi=10.2307/2535663 |jstor=2535663 |url=http://jps.ucpress.edu/content/1/4/59.full.pdf}}
 *{{Cite journal |title=Gentile and Stranger in Jewish Law |last=Falk |first=Ze'ev |editor-last=Rubinstein |editor-first=Arieh |journal=Steps |publisher=Movement for Torah Judaism |date=3 December 1997 |pages=47–53}}
-*{{Cite news |title=Religion in the Middle East: the fundamental problem |last=Fisk |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Fisk |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/comment-religion-in-the-middle-east-the-fundamental-problem-740098.html |date=3 December 1997}}
 *{{Cite book |title=The Holocaust, Israel, and Canadian Protestant Churches |last=Genizi |first=Haim |year=2002 |publisher=[[McGill-Queen's Press]] |url=https://archive.org/details/holocaustisr_geni_2002_000_7272254 |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/holocaustisr_geni_2002_000_7272254/page/n111 94] |isbn=978-0-773-57039-9}}
 *{{Cite book |chapter=Forward |last=Hitchens |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hitchens |year=1997 |title=Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies |publisher=[[Pluto Press]] |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZsIzQ9mDLXsC |isbn=978-0-745-31151-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/opensecrets00isra}}