From Oligarch to Icon

The plight of Mikhail Khodorkovsky raises questions about the place of Russian Jews today

Peering from behind bars, his hair shorn to prison regulation length, Mikhail Khodorkovsky maintains a quiet dignity. Once the richest man in Russia and head of the giant Yukos oil conglomerate, he has become a cause célèbre as Russia’s most famous political prisoner and an increasingly irritating thorn in the side of the Putin administration. His case highlights Russia’s ingrained authoritarianism, an image Putin has been at pains to challenge, as well as drawing attention to the uncomfortable phenomenon of the Jewish oligarch. More widely it invites consideration of the position of Jews in post-communist Russia and why it is that so many of them left. Read more

Two of a Kind

As The Palestinians Prepare to Declare Independence, the parallels between Israel and Palestine appear more striking

After the first Zionist conference in 1897, Theodor Herzl confided to his diary,“In Basel I created the Jewish state”. By the end of this month, Mahmoud Abbas may also declare — in another Swiss location —“In Geneva I created the Palestinian state”. On that day the PLO will present a call for the United Nations General Assembly in New York to approve Palestinian independence. If the Assembly passes it and the Security Council does not wield a veto, then the PLO observer mission at UN Offices in Geneva will upgrade to full member’s status. The very act of declaring independence and the coincidental Swiss connection brings the Palestinians curiously into line with the founders of the State of Israel, whose own declaration of independence was a pragmatic acceptance of the available over the greater ideal. Once aligned, multiple parallels between Israel and Palestine become visible across their social and political structures, some of which date from the Mandate. Through a historical and cultural consideration of the Palestinian’s proposed bid, it is possible to assess these parallels and see better how a future two-state solution might find an optimum modus operandi.

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100 years of Kibbutzim

Twelve young Romanian Jews, ten men and two women, marooned on a barren plot overlooking the Sea of Galilee. The year was 1910 and the place, named Degania A, neighboured the remote Arab village Umm Juni in a Palestine still under Ottoman rule. As the dawn of a new way of life that many later regarded as epitomising Israel, the state-to-be, it was an inauspicious beginning yet also the stuff of legend. The founders of Degania A could almost be seen as twelve latter-day children of Jacob, progenitors of future tribes. Determined to ‘redeem the land’, smash the class system and radically transform the Jewish condition through the dignity of manual labour, they went where others feared to tread. Degania in Hebrew and Umm Juni in Arabic both mean ‘cornflower’ but conditions were harsh, the soil was stubborn and malaria was rife. Their experiment was virtually snuffed out later that year, only to be refreshed by a new garin (seed or unit) of Russian pioneers in 1911. Read more