Diebe in der Nacht

by Arthur Koestler

Based on the author's own experiences in a kibbutz, it sets up a stage in describing the historical roots of the conflict between Arabs and Jewish settlers in the British ruled Palestine.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Hungary, Literature, Israel, Jewish

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Darkness at Noon (1940), novel of Hungarian-born British writer Arthur Koestler, portrays his disillusionment with Communism; his nonfiction works include The Sleepwalkers (1959) and The Ghost in the Machine (1967).


Arthur Koestler CBE [*Kösztler Artúr] was a prolific writer of essays, novels and autobiographies.

He was born into a Hungarian Jewish family in Budapest but, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. His early career was in journalism. In 1931 he joined the Communist Party of Germany but, disillusioned, he resigned from it in 1938 and in 1940 published a devastating anti-Communist novel, Darkness at Noon, which propelled him to instant international fame.

Over the next forty-three years he espoused many causes, wrote novels and biographies, and numerous essays. In 1968 he was awarded the prestigious and valuable Sonning Prize "For outstanding contribution to European culture", and in 1972 he was made a "Commander of the British Empire" (CBE).

In 1976 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and three years later with leukaemia in its terminal stages. He committed suicide in 1983 in London.

Reviews

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ein Buch über das Leben in einem Kibbuz kurz vor Ausbruch des 2. Weltkriegs. Geschrieben von einem meiner Lieblingsschriftsteller, der selbst in Palästina gelebt hat, so dass man annehmen kann, dass das Buch autobiographische Züge enthält.

Der Held, Joseph, ist allerdings Halbjude (und Halbengländer, wenn es so etwas gibt). Natürlich erfährt man eine Menge über das Leben und die Auseinandersetzungen mit den arabischen Einwohnern. Ein sozialistisches Experiment, das sogar zu funktionieren schien.

Leider hat der Roman einen großen Nachtteil, er ist total langweilig.

Zwischendurch gibt es Aufregung, weil Joseph genötigt wird, seine Geliebte, mit der er ein eheähnliches Verhältnis führt, zu heiraten. Sie leben nicht zusammen, und Joseph möchte es dabei belassen, lieber teilt er seinen Raum mit einem Mann. Weil er seine Ruhe haben möchte. Ob er sie denn dadurch nicht erniedrige, dass er Sex mit ihr habe ohne sie heiraten zu wollen. Ob er den Mann, mit dem er Tennis spiele erniedrige, wenn er nicht mit ihm Schach spiele.

Und dann wird die eigentlich Liebe Josephs von den Arabern ermordet. Daraufhin lässt die Gemeinschaft den Dorfvorsitzenden und Vater des Mörders umbringen. Rache muss sein.

Am Ende gibt es einen hübschen Vergleich von Joseph, die Araber seien Fische, die zufrieden im Meer schwimmen, die Juden dagegen klettern an Land, um sich zu Amphibien entwickeln zu können, um eines Tages in der Sonne liegen zu können.

Und auch gut. Ein Hund geniesst sein Fressen, aber nicht mit Bewusstsein, sonst würde er nicht so schlingen und sich die besten Stücke für den Schluss aufbewahren.

5/10

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Koestler, a Hungarian-British writer and journalist, more famously wrote Darkness at Noon, a critique of Communism and totalitarianism.

Thieves in the Night, written later, is a gently powerful story. Koestler recounts the travails and limited joys of only a few of the “milliohnim” who sought a promised land. His characters are Jews, creating new settlements on purchased Arab land in the Holy Land, prior to World War II.

Men and women who create settlements live a tough life. A reader like me learns almost too much about the vagaries and drudgery of deliberately, fully conscious communal life on Ezra's Tower, an isolated hilltop in Galilee. First, establish the security perimeter, then erect the watchtower, build the children's dorm, construct the cowshed, set up the showers…in that order. The dining hall, the sleeping huts for the men and women, and the lavatories are to be built later.


The Mukhtar and his clan in the nearby Arab village do not welcome the Hebrew newcomers. Soon, the leader of the village delegation gives morbid advice to the settlers: "You young fools and children of death, you don't know what may happen to you." Bauman responds, curtly: "We are prepared." The Jewish settlement at Ezra's Tower is not a resort.

The story of the settlers' life at Ezra's Tower is drab. Koestler's exploration of their mindset, their politics, their philosophy, and their religion all swirled together is stunning. Their aspirations and their misgivings, and their palpable legacy of homelessness and their transforming experiences, are irresistible.

Thieves in the Night is an adventure for the open and inquiring mind. Occasional sympathetic despair is a perfectly understandable reaction.

After you read this novel, look around you and ask yourself if you see things a bit differently. Ask yourself if you like your new conception of "a thief in the night."

Read more of my book reviews on my website: http://richardsubber.com/

[Giorgio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another must-read for anyone interested in the history and present of the region. Beautifully written, with a non-trivial mix of narrative momentum and inner reflection.
Far from being an unbiased reportage, it does a great job at showing the cultural frictions between Arabs, Jews, and the British. Then it zooms in, dissecting the various kinds of Jews and portraying the lives of ordinary Arabs in detail, making it possible to really step into their shoes. Characterization is vivid, sometimes extreme, but does it bring us closer to the truth? Yes.

Key point:
- For the Jews living in Palestine at that point there was no real alternative. Once you descend into the complexity of individual stories, it becomes clear: they had no choice but to fight for their right to be there. This holds true for the idealists, the refugees, those rooted in the land, and those forced there by pogroms or discrimination elsewhere. The anti-Zionist narrative that paints them as spoiled imperialists landing on a whim to grab fertile land just doesn’t hold.

Another essential lens the book offers: zoom out and follow the timeline.
- Jews were already there. Jerusalem had a Jewish majority before 1948.
- Many more arrived across a long span, 30 or 40 years before 1948, not as part of some sudden invasion.
- They bought a lot of land, often paying inflated prices, dealing with tricks, bribes, legal hurdles, and eventually outright bans.
- The British were the colonizers. They held the power, made the rules, failed to manage the violence, and eventually betrayed their own mandate by siding with the Arabs.
- So even the pro-Israel claim that “the Arabs started the war in 1948” is wrong. The conflict began well before. And the controversial Zionist decisions must be read in the context of a long, existential struggle, not only with the Arabs, but with the British, who actively prevented Jews from defending themselves.

The real core of the book is this multi-front conflict, where the British come off as the most cynical and disgraceful players.
A framing I give full credit to is: Power = responsibility. A far more intelligent lens than the oppressor/victim narrative. If you hold the power, you carry the weight of accountability.
And Jews didn’t just show up with cash and guns to kick, burn, and conquer. The British were in control. They were the ones blocking refugees from entering the very land they were mandated to (partly) hand over.

Ladri nella Notte was written in 1947, yet it contains everything you need to make sense of what followed.

[Kevin Bradshaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, but it just isn't good. It is set in Mandate Palestine around the time of the Arab Revolt and provides an account of the split of the Irgun (or Stern Gang) from the Haganah. The book isn't without its redeeming features; the scene set before the British magistrate where an old Jewish man- rendered half deaf by Nazi violence- is sentenced to confinement and deportation for having illegally immigrated to Palestine was exceptional. The book may also be helpful to anyone who has wondered why the Stern Gang would have splintered off from the Haganah, or was unaware of how the British White Paper, among other policies, exacerbated the plight of the Jews who fled Nazi persecution and were turned away from the U.S. and then Palestine. These aspects of the story really, really made me want to like this book.

Despite its fascinating historical setting and the importance of many of the events it relates, the book is a failure. The characters are flat and dull, that is when they're not mere off-the-shelf character types. The narrative is disjointed, and it becomes tedious about two-thirds of the way through. Casual, and sometimes not so casual, racism pervades the book, some of which clearly attributable to the characters but at other times inherent to the narrative itself. Specifically, not only do its characters harbor anti-Semitic and anti-Arab sentiments and prejudices, as real persons did and continue to do, Koestler himself takes to the narrative many of the same prejudices. Examples abound; to name just one: an Arab wife is supposed to be available for purchase 5 pounds, because, you know, they're Arabs or something.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tells of life and conflict in pre-World War II Palestine, at time when the Jews were undergoing murderous persecution in Europe by the Nazis, when Britain was blocking Jews from entering Palestine, and when Arab terror was being stepped up in the Holy Land, incited and actively aided by the British.
The book depicts all of these things, as well as life on a Kibbutz and it's complicated and interesting people there.
It depicts well the interactions of the players, life on a kibbutz, life in the Holy Land, and insights into psychology, Zionism, socialism, war and peace, life and death and sexuality.
A very good novel by a dislikeable and disturbed man.

[Joshua]

Drives home the point of how remarkable and unlikely the founding of the state of Israel was, and what an extraordinary cast of characters was involved in its founding, and their utopian motivations.

My teacher carried his praying-scarf in a velvet bag to the synagogue:
Even so carry I my sacred gun to the Temple
That its voice may pray for us.
--poem of Yair Stern, quoted on p. 280

[Narayani Manapadam · Rating 4 out of 5]

If a friend of mine hadn’t gifted this book to me, I probably wouldn’t have read it. The fact that the author was a survivor of a concentration camp piqued my interest. Moreover, the yellow pages enticed me to plunge into them. When an ardent reader parts with something so precious, you, as an equally immersive bookworm, respect her by reading it at the first available opportunity.


Plot

A group of settlers arrives in Gan Tamar. They are to erect a settlement overlooking a village of Arabs. With this premise, the novel sets in motion a series of conflicts between Arabs and Jews in British-ruled Palestine.


Review

I have not read a single Arthur Koestler book so far. As a result, I do not have a benchmark to measure Thieves in the Night against. However, the story begins on an interesting note. With dreams of rebuilding Galilee, Joseph and his friends, Simeon and Dina, arrive in the dead of night to establish Ezra’s Tower. The novel not only traces their lives but also that of the Arabs, especially Mukhtar and his son Issa.

Koestler describes how fascism and moderation have always been at loggerheads. Instances of young recruits indoctrinated with lofty ideals make for a gut-wrenching experience. Similarly, the Mukhtar’s hatred for Hebrew women because they roam around in shorts is equally repulsive. But the novel is not just about prejudices or hatred. It tells a tale of struggle, violence, and vengeance. The cycle is never-ending. As the novel reaches its end, readers encounter a sense of déjà vu. An experienced Joseph looks on as a group of young settlers talk nonchalantly about sacrifices and the need for their own country.

The novel is written in the third-person point of view. Occasionally, the author references the chronicles of Joseph to draw our attention to his inner turmoil and his observations on the conflict.

The characters as such were not likeable to me. However, I felt the eerie presence of the summery land hovering over the novel – like a khamsin. The description of the dry wind blowing from the Arabian desert is a precursor for a graphic crime against Dina and sets in motion the wheel of vengeance.

Talking about the White Paper of 1939, Koestler writes, “A document with no legal validity became the legal guide of Government, Law Courts and Police; lawlessness reigned as the supreme law in the Holy Land.”

Thieves in the Night is not meant to be an unputdownable book where readers gush about the edge-of-the-seat narrative. It should make you ponder. Goodness and evil exist across humanity. But once humanity gets blinded by hatred or religion, the only path that remains will lead it downhill.

Overall, it was a thought-provoking read. If you are up for it, grab it.

[Herrholz Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is essentially historical fiction. It is written in such a way as to provide perspective from the point of view of numerous parties concerned, whether it be the Jews, the Arabs or the British, and/or others and Köstler casts his critical eye over all concerned. This gives the book an unbiased, impartial, objective feeling even though Köstler himself was Jewish. He also spent a short time with a Kibbutz in Israel, but he probably was not cut out for this lifestyle and was either asked to leave or left by his own accord. He writes - `the warmth of a fraternity where every boy and girl had been tested, was liked and approved`. The early years of such a kibbutz forms some of the narrative here and follows a group of youngsters as they build a new settlement on purchased land. The book may be semi-autobiographical and the character of Joseph closely aligned with that of the author. All in all, a really good book from a great writer.

[Deborah Rohne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eindrucksvoll beschreibt der Roman die unmittelbare Vorgeschichte des Staates Israels, die Flucht von Juden vor Hass und Vertreibung in den 1930ern nach Palästina und die Gründung der Kibbuzim am Beispiel von "Esras Turm" und dem jungen Joseph, der sich der Spirale der Gewalt zwischen Arabarn und Juden letztendlich nicht entziehen kann. Ein Meisterwerk, um die Wurzeln des Nahostkonflikts zu verstehen und zu entdecken. Ich las den Roman, während ich durch Israel reiste, was ihn nur umso wirkmächtiger machte.

[rico baudelaire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livre incroyable. Une immersion dans la période d'occupation britannique en Palestine ; dans le même élan, la période pré-coloniale sioniste. Arthur Koestler ne m'a jamais déçu et il frappe fort avec ce livre ! Étant lui-même, dans ses jeunes temps, un sioniste socialiste et révisionniste ayant vécu en Palestine dans une commune, il apporte vraiment des propos nuancés sur la question nationale de ce coin du monde. À lire avec le sourcil froncé, parce qu'on y voit les fondations d'un régime qui, aujourd'hui, opprime, détruit et invisibilise des millions de voix. À lire !

[Alejxndrx · Rating 4 out of 5]

C'est un romain ambientée dans l'époque de premiers colons israeliens (~1939). Malgré le biais assez évident de l'auteur, le texte est bien écrit et il sert à comprendre le psyche des colons en Palestine.

[Régime des fleurs 🌷☭🍝🫖]

tres bon roman pour comprendre les origines de l’Etat d’Israël et les contradictions internes dans le mouvement sioniste.

[Cristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Molto interessante.

Ottimo libro. Non ha scalfito particolarmente i miei preconcetti sulla cosiddetta questione palestinese ma mi ha comunque fornito anche l'altra campana. Ad esempio non avevo idea che i terreni sui cui sono sorti i primi kibbutz fossero stati legalmente acquistati, per dire. Sempre di più mi rendo conto che bisogna davvero "camminare nelle scarpe dell'altro" per capirci qualcosa o comunque per avere idee che non siano alla fine altro che preconcetti e pregiudizi. Queasto non toglie che se qualcuno si compra legalmente il campo vicino a casa mia e dichiara lo stato di Topolinia e si metta a costruire muri io sia contenta, eh.
Il libro è scritto molto bene, bello asciutto e dritto al punto, senza troppe divagazioni. L'autore, che ha davvero vissuto in un kibbutz, fornisce una interessante descrizione non solo della vita di comunità, con limiti e cose positive, ma soprattutto il resoconto del funzionamento reale e pratico di una "società" piccola ma autosufficiente (più o meno, anzi quasi, in realtà vivono di prestiti ^_^). Mi piace che le donne avessero gli stessi diritti e doveri degli uomini, che fossero libere di scegliere amanti e compagni e di avere figli e che questi fossero considerati "della comunità". Meno che se poi uno non le voleva sposare gli potessero di fatto forzare la mano proprio portando la questione di fronte alla comunità, come a dire che siano i genitori, siano gli altri tutti si impicciano dei fatti tuoi.
Meno interessante, almeno per me, la descrizione dell'arruolamento nei gruppi combattenti di giovani e meno giovani e la parte più "avventurosa" che mi hanno un poco annoiato. Bello l'ultimo capitolo, che di fatto chiude il cerchio: un altro viaggio in camion nella notte verso un futuro incerto. Ma meglio la speranza, anche se porta a correre rischi, no?

[Mazel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A travers ce témoignage, c'est toute l'histoire de la naissance de l'Etat d'Israël et d'un peuple qui retrouve enfin sa patrie perdue après une errance de deux mille ans que nous retrace Arthur Koestler (1905 - 1983).

La communauté socialiste d'Ezra s'est établie sur une colline aride et désertique.

Il faut lutter sans cesse pour conserver cette parcelle de terre "symbole", contre les intempéries, la maladie, la solitude, enfin, le découragement.

Il faut survivre pour montrer aux autres nations qu'un Etat nouveau peut resurgir de ce désert.

Koestler n'était pas seulement un incomparable analyste du monde concentrationnaire.

Romancier vigoureux de la taille d'un Malraux, témoin lucide de son temps, essayiste, ce fils de famille juive hongroise était aussi un prophète

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly readable despite its age, this reads like an epic drama but also a history lesson about early Israel from someone who was there.

Not always pretty--the characters are blunt about themselves and others (so, Jews say awful things about themselves and Arabs, Arabs say awful things about Jews, and no one much likes the British) but it smacks of authenticity, and despite the sometimes very unsympathetic portraits of whole groups and individuals, there's usually some very humane or sympathetic thread or thought spared for almost all.

Worth a read especially for those interested in Israel, Mandate Palestine, Zionism, and kibbutz life.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently based on the author's own experiences in a kibbutz, it sets up a stage to describe the historical roots of the conflict between Arabs and Jewish settlers in the British ruled Palestine. The descriptions of life in the commune are convincing and the the changes brought about by the experiment are fascinating.

The Israeli experience of the kibbutz would appear to be as close as mankind has got to pure communism. A radical alternative to capitalism, with everything owned in common, and the absence of all the ills that beset the democratic process.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Realy interesting novel about the day to day experience of early emigrants to Israel and the kibbutz movement based, in part, on Koestler's own experiences. I was both moved by the details and put off by the politics - I've never read anything quite like it.

[Hillel Damron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite remarkable.