epoqueepique > Recent Status Updates

Reading on Internet Archive as background for Kadish’s The Weight of Ink.
Style is dry. Shows how lively modern history has become.
GR has not uploaded any info on this book, a pity.
Thank you Helen for your recommendation!

Menasseh is remembered as the head of the Jewish community in XVIIth century Great Britain, the author of The Hope of Israel (1650, his messianic vision), the interlocutor of the sympathetic-to-the-Jews Cromwell.
He was also the first printer in Hebrew in Amsterdam, a trader for the Jewish colony of Recife in Brazil, and the subject of The Weight of Ink, by Rachel Kadish.

Reading on Internet Archive.
Background reading for The Weight of Ink, by Rachel Kadish.
Neither the 1934 nor the second edition in 1945 show on Goodreads.

Whenever I catch myself reading every paragraph twice, to slow down, and to capture the pleasure once again, and then putting the book down every 10 minutes for a deep breath, I know I have found a gem.

Judging by the lively and tender 41 page introduction (1987) he devotes to him, Hillel Halkin may well be the finest translator Aleichem could have hoped for.

Reading and rereading, in chronological order, the three thinkers who laid the foundations of Zionism:

Leon Pinsker
Theodor Herzl
Max Nordau

And adding Israel Eldad, who carried their ideas further.

I read slowly, not because I read slowly, but because i check each and every note, reference, source and articles about the book, especially on Jstor and Persée, and I don't seem to ever get enough information... This is probably some neurotic disease.

Thanks to GR Josh whom I asked to borrow the book from, and who trusted me and sent it to me in France 🥰. So many thanks…

I shifted to this 2021 edition of Terre d’Amour et de Feu, which contains an update of 80 pages published in 1970.
So a definitive compendium of all of Kessel’s reporting in Israel in 1926-1948-1962-1970.

The postulate:
Israel has attained her status as a regional power, —let’s say it proudly: a world power—, through very very hard work.
It has achieved « the miracle », yes it has.

Wilf: Israel has been resting on its laurels; it is now opting for lazy policies.

Ideas for solutions in chapter 9 (60 last pages).

I am reading this so slowly… Wilf’s references in her notes are a gold mine, and all worth the time to search them, read them and all the other notes in those reads… Unfortunately, so many Israeli archival sources haven’t been translated, nor put into book format like the trove of oral testimonies from early Great Aliyah settlers (National Library of Israel)…

« The citizens and soldiers of the State of Israel performed phenomenally for two years, but their accomplishments could easily vanish if the leadership (…) continues to behave as if they had just finished another « round in Gaza » (…) from which we could CONTINUE TELLING OURSELVES PLEASANT LIES ABOUT A DETERRED POPULATION AT OUR BORDER, THAT ONLY WANTS MORE MONEY AND A GOOD LIFE. » (p. 23, my caps)

Very interesting to read this short book as Einat Wilf’s political manifesto, just as she was about to launch her party, Oz, in November 2025.

Considered the definitive reference work on Doña Gracia Nasi, whose immense fortune was coveted by the kings of Spain, Portugal, the Roman Empire and the Papal states.
Her power, her life as a threatened converso helping other Jews flee to the more « tolerant » Ottoman Empire.
Her determination not to relinquish her Jewish faith.
Brooks and her team spent years of research in archives… Amazing work.