Difference between revisions of "Israel Shahak"

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'''Dr. Israel Shahak''' (born '''Israel Himmelstaub''', 28 April 1933 – 2 July 2001) was an 'Israeli' professor of organic chemistry at the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]], a Holocaust survivor, an intellectual of liberal political bent, and a civil-rights advocate and activist on behalf of both Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews). For twenty years, he headed the [[Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights]] (1970–90) and was a public critic of the policies of the governments of Israel. As a public intellectual, Shahak's works about Judaism proved controversial, especially the book ''Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years'' (1994).{{sfn|Warschawski|2001}}
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'''Dr. Israel Shahak''' (born '''Israel Himmelstaub''', 28 April 1933 – 2 July 2001) was an 'Israeli' professor of organic chemistry at the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]], a Holocaust survivor, an intellectual of liberal political bent, and a civil-rights advocate and activist on behalf of both Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews). For twenty years, he headed the [[Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights]] (1970–90) and was a public critic of the policies of the governments of Israel. As a public intellectual, Shahak's works about Judaism proved controversial, especially the book ''Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years'' (1994).<ref name="Warschawski">{{Cite journal |title=The Last Israeli Liberal: Remembering Israel Shahak (1933-2001) |last=Warschawski |first=Michel |author-link=Michel Warschawski |journal=[[Journal of Palestine Studies]] |date=Summer 2001 |issue=13 |page=32 |url=http://www.palestine-studies.org/jq/fulltext/78062}}
  
 
==Biography==
 
==Biography==
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=== Public intellectual ===
 
=== 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".{{sfn|Hitchens|2001}}
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In the 1960s he joined the Israeli League Against Religious Coercion.{{sfn|Warschawski|2001}} 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 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 1967, after the [[Six-Day War]] (5–10 June 1967), Shahak ended his membership to the League Against Religious Coercion, because they were "fake liberals" who used the principles of Liberalism to combat coercive religious influence in Israeli society — but did not apply such protections to the Israeli Palestinians living in the IDF-occupied [[West Bank]] and in the [[Gaza Strip]].{{sfn|Warschawski|2001}} In the event, Shahak joined the [[Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights]], and became its president in 1970.{{sfn|Adams|2001}} The League, composed of Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel, protested and publicized Israel's restrictive policies against Palestinians and provided legal aid to them. Some settlers in the West Bank city of [[Hebron]] so hated him that in 1971 they had their pick-up truck painted with "Dr. Shahak To The Gallows".{{sfn|Davis|1972|p=66}}
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In 1967, after the [[Six-Day War]] (5–10 June 1967), Shahak ended his membership to the League Against Religious Coercion, because they were "fake liberals" who used the principles of Liberalism to combat coercive religious influence in Israeli society — but did not apply such protections to the Israeli Palestinians living in the IDF-occupied [[West Bank]] and in the [[Gaza Strip]].<ref name="Warschawski"/> In the event, Shahak joined the [[Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights]], and became its president in 1970.{{sfn|Adams|2001}} The League, composed of Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel, protested and publicized Israel's restrictive policies against Palestinians and provided legal aid to them. Some settlers in the West Bank city of [[Hebron]] so hated him that in 1971 they had their pick-up truck painted with "Dr. Shahak To The Gallows".{{sfn|Davis|1972|p=66}}
  
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In 1969, Shahak and another member of the faculty of Hebrew University staged a sit-down protest against the Israeli government's policy of jailing politically active Palestinian students, by way of [[administrative detention]] authorised by state-of-emergency laws; likewise, Shahak supported the political efforts of Palestinian students to achieve equal rights, like those granted to Jewish Israelis, at Hebrew University.{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} In 1970, Shahak established the Committee Against Administrative Detentions to formally oppose such legalised political repression.{{sfn|Warschawski|2001}}
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In 1969, Shahak and another member of the faculty of Hebrew University staged a sit-down protest against the Israeli government's policy of jailing politically active Palestinian students, by way of [[administrative detention]] authorised by state-of-emergency laws; likewise, Shahak supported the political efforts of Palestinian students to achieve equal rights, like those granted to Jewish Israelis, at Hebrew University.{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} In 1970, Shahak established the Committee Against Administrative Detentions to formally oppose such legalised political repression.<ref name="Warschawski"/>
  
 
To make public what he considered the anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian legalised discrimination, Shahak published English translations of Hebrew-language reportage about illegal and unjust actions of the Israeli government against the gentile citizens of Israel; Shahak's English reports were intended for the Jewish community of the U.S.{{sfn|Adams|2001}}{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} The translated reports featured headlines such as "Torture in Israel," and "Collective Punishment in the West Bank", which Shahak sent to journalists, academics, and human rights activists, and so ensured that the mainstream population of the U.S. would be informed of the religious discrimination practised by the government of Israel.{{sfn|Rickman|2009}}
 
To make public what he considered the anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian legalised discrimination, Shahak published English translations of Hebrew-language reportage about illegal and unjust actions of the Israeli government against the gentile citizens of Israel; Shahak's English reports were intended for the Jewish community of the U.S.{{sfn|Adams|2001}}{{sfn|Mezvinsky|2001}} The translated reports featured headlines such as "Torture in Israel," and "Collective Punishment in the West Bank", which Shahak sent to journalists, academics, and human rights activists, and so ensured that the mainstream population of the U.S. would be informed of the religious discrimination practised by the government of Israel.{{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 [[atavism|atavistic]] reaction against the European [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]]'s individualism that strove to revive the suffocating world of the [[Jewish ghettos in Europe|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 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 [[atavism|atavistic]] reaction against the European [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]]'s individualism that strove to revive the suffocating world of the [[Jewish ghettos in Europe|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}}
  
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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.{{sfn|Warschawski|2001}} 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}}}}
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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}}}}
  
 
<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>
 
<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}}
 
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}}
  
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[[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."{{sfn|Warschawski|2001}}
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[[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"/>
  
 
==Publications==
 
==Publications==
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*{{cite web |title=The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics |publisher=[[Anti-Defamation League]] |url=http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100805220714/http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf |archive-date=5 August 2010}}&nbsp;{{small|(199&nbsp;KB)}}, [[Anti-Defamation League]], February 2003.
 
*{{cite web |title=The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics |publisher=[[Anti-Defamation League]] |url=http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100805220714/http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf |archive-date=5 August 2010}}&nbsp;{{small|(199&nbsp;KB)}}, [[Anti-Defamation League]], February 2003.
 
*{{Cite book |chapter=Introduction |last=Vidal |first=Gore |author-link=Gore Vidal |year=2002 |orig-year=First published 1994 |title=Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years |publisher=[[Pluto Press]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=avh6dkSop0EC&pg=PA1 |isbn=978-0-745-30819-7}}
 
*{{Cite book |chapter=Introduction |last=Vidal |first=Gore |author-link=Gore Vidal |year=2002 |orig-year=First published 1994 |title=Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years |publisher=[[Pluto Press]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=avh6dkSop0EC&pg=PA1 |isbn=978-0-745-30819-7}}
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*{{Cite journal |title=The Last Israeli Liberal: Remembering Israel Shahak (1933-2001) |last=Warschawski |first=Michel |author-link=Michel Warschawski |journal=[[Journal of Palestine Studies]] |date=Summer 2001 |issue=13 |page=32 |url=http://www.palestine-studies.org/jq/fulltext/78062}}
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{{Refend}}
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Revision as of 11:39, 7 December 2025

Dr. Israel Shahak (born Israel Himmelstaub, 28 April 1933 – 2 July 2001) was an 'Israeli' professor of organic chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Holocaust survivor, an intellectual of liberal political bent, and a civil-rights advocate and activist on behalf of both Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews). For twenty years, he headed the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights (1970–90) and was a public critic of the policies of the governments of Israel. As a public intellectual, Shahak's works about Judaism proved controversial, especially the book Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years (1994).Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag

Said comments specifically about Jewish History, Jewish Religion as a powerful contribution to the study of Judaism and rabbinical and Talmudic traditions and its associated scholarship. In summary, he describes this work:

Shahak shows that the obscure, narrowly chauvinist prescriptions against various undesirable Others are to be found in Judaism (as well of course as other monotheistic traditions) but he also then goes on to show the continuity between those and the way Israel treats Palestinians, Christians and other non-Jews. A devastating portrait of prejudice, hypocrisy and religious intolerance emerges.[1]

About his other writing, Said also emphasized Shahak's willingness to criticize Palestinian policies, addressing "the PLO's sloppiness, its ignorance of Israel, its inability to resolutely oppose Israel, its shabby compromises and cult of personality, its general lack of seriousness." Template:Sfn

In his book review, Werner Cohn said that Shahak was making "grotesque charges" and that specific passages in Jewish History, Jewish Religion are without foundation:Template:Sfn

Some are just funny. He says (pp. 23-4) that "Jewish children are actually taught" to utter a ritual curse when passing a non-Jewish cemetery.Template:Efn He also tells us (p. 34) that "both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands....On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God... but on the other he is worshiping Satan..." I did take the trouble to question my orthodox rabbi nephew to find what might be behind such tall tales. He had no clue. If orthodox Jews were actually taught such hateful things, surely someone would have heard. Whom is Dr. Shahak kidding?.Template:Efn

The remark regarding children passing a cemetery occurs in Shahak's discussion of passages modified by rabbis who, under pressure from antisemitic Christian authorities such as those in Tzarist Russia, altered the texts, while keeping private copies of the originals which, according to Shahak were restored as the proper manuscript readings and published in Israel after the founding of the state of Israel.Template:Sfn

Samuel Heilman writing for the 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."[2]

Critical reception

As a public intellectual, Israel Shahak was accused by Zionists of fabricating the incidents he reported, of blaming the victim, of distorting the normative meaning of Jewish religious texts, and of misrepresenting Jewish belief and law.Template:Sfn 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."Template:Sfn 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:

The texts that Shahak cites are real (though Shahak's sporadic use of footnotes makes it difficult to check all of them). Often, the interpretation [by Shahak] of these texts is debatable, and their prominence in Judaism negligible, but, nonetheless, they are part of Jewish tradition, and, therefore, cannot be ignored.Template:Sfn

Accusations of being an antisemite were among the responses to Shahak's works about Judaism and the Talmud.Template:Sfn In that vein, in The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) listed Shahak as one of four authors of antisemitic polemics, and Bogdanor said that in his works, Shahak was "recycling Soviet anti-Semitic propaganda".Template:Sfn Werner Cohn said, "without question, he is the world's most conspicuous Jewish anti-Semite.... Like the Nazis before him, Shahak specialized in defaming the Talmud. In fact, he has made it his life's work to popularize the anti–Talmud ruminations of the eighteenth-century German anti-Semite, Johann Eisenmenger".Template:Sfn Emanuele Ottolenghi, reviewing Alexander and Bogdanor's book, argued that Jews such as Shahak, George Steiner, Tanya Reinhart, Tony Judt, Avi Shlaim, Seymour Hersh and Daniel Boyarin act as enablers for antisemites, because the rhetoric of antisemitic Jews plays a "crucial role... in excusing, condoning, and — in effect — abetting anti-Semitism." In his opinion, "Anti-Semites rely on Jews to confirm their prejudice: If Jews recur to such language, and advocate such policies, how can anyone be accused of anti-Semitism, for making the same arguments?... The mechanism through which an anti-Semitic accusation becomes respectable once a Jew endorses it is not limited to Israel's new historians.... Israel Shahak made the comparison between Israel and Nazism respectable — all the while describing Judaism according to the medieval canons of the blood libel".Template:Sfn

The journalist Dan Rickman argues that

Shahak ignores [the dialectical nature and humanist] aspects of the sources. Further, through overstating his case, his analysis fits into anti-Semitic traditions of such accusations against the Talmud. Copies of the Talmud have been burned, and the text of the Talmud that is studied today is still heavily censored. Shahak's view that chauvinism in these sources in any way 'justifies' anti-Semitism is also very troubling. However, I do believe that his trenchant critique of Judaism is, tragically, not without some force. The contemporary situation is that we do see some modern Orthodox rabbis utilise xenophobic sources in modern rulings. Orthodox rabbis in organisations such as Rabbis for Human Rights are sadly the exception rather than the rule.Template:Sfn

Death

Shahak died of diabetes in July 2001 and was buried in Giv'at Shaul cemetery, Jerusalem.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Gore Vidal said Shahak was "the latest, if not the last, of the great prophets",Template:Sfn regarding the influence of religion upon the 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."Template:Sfn An obituary in Haaretz called him "the scourge of nationalists".Template:Sfn

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."Template:Sfn Alexander Cockburn, writing in Antiwar.com, described Shahak the intellectual, the "tireless translator and erudite foot-noter... a singular man, an original."Template:Sfn 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."Template:Sfn In an obituary, the journalist Elfi Pallis called Shahak essentially "an old-fashioned liberal" in principle, thought, and action.Template:Sfn 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."[3]

Publications

Books

  • Israel Shahak, (ed.), The Non-Jew in the Jewish State; a collection of Documents, Jerusalem, 1975
  • Israel Shahak (ed), Begin & Co as they really are, Glasgow 1977
  • Israel Shahak and Noam Chomsky, Israel's Global Role: Weapons for Repression (Studies in Geophysical Optics and Remote Sensing), Association of Arab-American University Graduates, Inc., April 1982, paperback, Template:ISBN
  • Israel Shahak, Israel's Global Role : Weapons for Repression (Special Reports, No. 4), Association of Arab-American University Graduates, 1982, paperback
  • Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years: Pluto Press, London, 1994, Template:ISBN; Pluto Press, London, 2008, Template:ISBN
  • Israel Shahak, Open Secrets: Israeli Foreign and Nuclear Policies, Pluto Press, London, 1997
  • Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (Pluto Middle Eastern Series), Pluto Press (UK), October, 1999, hardcover, 176 pages, Template:ISBN; trade paperback, Pluto Press, (UK), October, 1999, Template:ISBN; 2nd edition with new introduction by Norton Mezvinsky, trade paperback July, 2004, 224 pages

Articles

Interviews

  • An Interview with Israel Shahak, interview in Journal of Palestine Studies, 4, no. 3 (Spr. 1975): 3-20.
  • No Change in Zion, interview in Journal of Palestine Studies, 7, no. 3 (Spr. 1978): 3-16.



Sources



The Yinon Plan

The Yinon Plan was a document written in Hebrew by Oded Yinon. It was translated into English in 1982 by the anti-Zionist activist Israel Shahak.

Shahak writes in the foreword:

In an highly revealing article published in the World Zionist Organization periodical, Kivunim, Oded Yinon advocates that Israeli strategy in the 1980s aims to redraw the map of the Middle East, fragment the Arab states, and become, in effect, a regional superpower.[4]

It is noted in a prefatory passage:

This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14--Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.

Notes

  1. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named :0
  2. ↑ Review of Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, (Pluto Middle Eastern Series). 2001. . pp. 112–113
  3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Warschawski
  4. ↑ The Zionist Plan for the Middle East Translated and edited by Israel Shahak from Oded Yinon's,'A STRATEGY FOR ISRAEL IN THE NINETEEN EIGHTIES'. ASSOCIAIION OF ARAB-AMERICAN UNTVERSTTY GRADUATES, INC. Belmont Massachusetts, 1982
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