By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — In political statements and commentary, the expression “on the right side of history” often appears. The politician or commentator puts his worldview and his actions “on the right side of history,” and his opponent’s opinions and policies on its ” wrong side.” Often statements about the right side of
On the Right Side of History Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Israel, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — The assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was the most important political assassination of the twentieth century, for it was the trigger for World War I. However, this assassination, committed in 1914, was not the only resounding political assassination in the
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Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — Tragedies often have a comic origin. This affair started out as being amusing and pleasurable, as well as uplifting, life-affirming and optimistic. It is August 25, 1917 Berlin. The premier of the operetta, The Black Forest Girl (Schwarzwaldmädel) is performed at the Komische Oper theatre. It has been a
By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — From 1843 to 1854 the literature of Germany, a country which had been fragmented into 36 states, began to produce unifying folk tales in which the German nation began to crystallize. The founding father of the new national identity expressed through literature was the writer Berthold Auerbach. He portrayed
By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — In June 1917, in the capital of the Russian Empire, Petrograd, formerly St. Petersburg, the poet Leonid Kannegiesser wrote a poem in which he glorified the chairman of the Provisional Government Alexander Kerensky, comparing his idol to the Messiah. Kannegiesser was born into a wealthy and cultured family of
The Jewish War Over Red Terror Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, OpinionMy grandfather Yaakov, my mother’s father, had seven brothers and one sister. At that time Jews in Russia gave birth to many children, because it was God’s will. Then God was forbidden in the Soviet Union, and there were fewer and fewer children. In our family there was less obedience to God’s commandments and fewer children were born. My grandmother Rosa gave birth to only two daughters, the eldest Leah and the youngest Dora, my mother. As in other Jewish families, the mother’s role grew as the number of children decreased. [Alex Gordon, Ph.D]
Jewish Fiction: The Yiddishe Mama Complex Read More »
Alex Gordon, Jewish FictionThis man fulfilled the typical dream of Jews who wanted to remake the world and their country of residence ‒ he became prime minister of a European state. Unlike Disraeli, he was not a baptized Jew. Born May 14, 1867, in Berlin to a Jewish family, Kurt Eisner became prime minister of Bavaria at age 51. [Alex Gordon, Ph.D]
History: Bavaria’s Revolutionary Jewish Prime Minister Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish HistoryBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — The images and colors of childhood sometimes determine later pictures of life. In my childhood, during the big Soviet holidays, an airship hovered over the city with four portraits on its huge body. One of the men portrayed in the portraits surpassed the other three in the amount of
On the Way to Israel Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Israel, Opinion
By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — The narrow corridor of the Physics Department of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, was strewn with doors all bearing plaques with the names of professors in Hebrew. I walked down the corridor, seeing “Professor …” everywhere. When I reached the very end, I noticed a
One Handshake Away From Albert Einstein Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Israel, Science, Medicine, & Education
By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — Johann Sebastian Bach composed six French Suites that began to be performed decades after the death of their author. In 2004, the non-musical French Suite, a novel about World War II, was published by the publishing house Denoel, translated into 38 languages. The book won France’s second most prestigious
80 Years On, Remembering ‘French Suite’ Author and Holocaust Victim Irène Némirovsky Read More »
Alex Gordon, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Holocaust, International, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — In postwar Germany, the humiliating burden of enormous contributions created an enormous economic crisis, hyperinflation, and impoverishment. Everything was devalued and the demand for antisemitism grew. During the Weimar Republic, articles accusing Jews of pushing the country into war and losing it were increasing in number. In 1922, the
The Murder of An ‘Elder of Zion’ Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — The Red Army liberated Kiev from German forces on November 6, 1943. My father was not conscripted because of a congenital heart condition. Because of his illness, he was always breathing heavily. His breathing became even heavier when he and my mother, returned to Kiev after two and a
The Return to Kiev Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — In 1919, the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to German scientist Fritz Haber “for the synthesis of ammonia from its constituent elements.” Ekstrand, president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said that Haber’s discoveries were extremely important for agriculture and the prosperity of mankind. Scientists of
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Alex Gordon, International, OpinionBy Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — The German historian and political scientist Otto-Ernst Schüddekopf wrote, “Walter Rathenau (the future German Foreign Minister, assassinated by the Nationalists in 1922 as one of the ‘ Elders of Zion’ – A.G.), who visited Radek in a Berlin prison in 1919 as an authority and read him his elegant
The Bitter Laughter and Tragic Fate of the First Writer of Anti-Soviet Jokes Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Opinion