For a book on the period that I really like (even though some changes have happened since of course) is the soviet century by Moshe Lewin (who also did political history but is still in the social school).
Ayyy, I just bought that one. I was disappointed to learn that Moshe was a zionist, though.
Yeah he was a Labor Zionist, wanted Israel based in collective farms and urban working class Jews and Arabs. I'm not sure what his opinion on the Palestinian left and the conflict was exactly, there's a box of letters about it at UPenn, but don't know if they are scanned and online. He did join a group dedicated to having Israel be a bi-national state of Arabs and Jews, and not a Jewish nation state at least.
Eh, settler colonialism and supporting a genocidal project are still pretty yikes even if he had an idealistic image of it in his head. Would be good to be able to read what he thought about it afterwards, but regardless it really doesn't make up for fighting in the Israeli military.
He didn't fight for the Israeli military I think. The group I was referring to was a youth group in Lithuania. He emigrated to Israel in 1951 in his thirties, where he worked on a kibbutz, then as a journalist, then he went and became a historian.
Edit: I'm wrong probably, disregard the above. Looks like military service made him quit supporting zionism. He served during Sinai briefly.
After working clandestinely in Paris to facilitate Jewish migration to Palestine, he emigrated to Israel in 1951. As he told the story, he was first shocked by Ariel Sharon’s raid into Jordan in 1953 that ended in a massacre in the village of Qibia; later, while serving in the Israeli army in the 1956 war with Egypt, Lewin concluded that his original Zionist ideals diverged too greatly from the actuality of the state of Israel. He turned to scholarship, first at Tel Aviv University, where he received his BA in 1961, and then at the Sorbonne, where he completed the doctoral thesis under Roger Portal that became his first book: La Paysannerie et le pouvoir soviétique: 1928–1930 (1966).
Nope, I was wrong. Was not aware he was in the army in 56 for Sinai. There's no cite for it though but I think a personal friend probably wrote that obituary so I'd assume it's true.
I also found a quote hobsbawm delivered for his funeral from this obituary : "Since I am unable to come to his funeral, let me, as an old friend and constant admirer of Moshe Lewin, drop a metaphorical handful of earth on his grave from afar. Nobody has made fewer concessions to the intellectual fashions of the times. He recognized the absurdity of Russia even at its darkest moments, and nobody made better jokes about it. They were signs of an indestructible hope. Nobody has taught me more about understanding the USSR and post-Soviet Russia than he. I will miss the insight, the endless curiosity and the moral independence of this man. Farewell, Moshe"
Ayyy, I just bought that one. I was disappointed to learn that Moshe was a zionist, though.
Yeah he was a Labor Zionist, wanted Israel based in collective farms and urban working class Jews and Arabs. I'm not sure what his opinion on the Palestinian left and the conflict was exactly, there's a box of letters about it at UPenn, but don't know if they are scanned and online. He did join a group dedicated to having Israel be a bi-national state of Arabs and Jews, and not a Jewish nation state at least.
Eh, settler colonialism and supporting a genocidal project are still pretty yikes even if he had an idealistic image of it in his head. Would be good to be able to read what he thought about it afterwards, but regardless it really doesn't make up for fighting in the Israeli military.
He didn't fight for the Israeli military I think. The group I was referring to was a youth group in Lithuania. He emigrated to Israel in 1951 in his thirties, where he worked on a kibbutz, then as a journalist, then he went and became a historian.
Edit: I'm wrong probably, disregard the above. Looks like military service made him quit supporting zionism. He served during Sinai briefly.
Is this not accurate?
Nope, I was wrong. Was not aware he was in the army in 56 for Sinai. There's no cite for it though but I think a personal friend probably wrote that obituary so I'd assume it's true.
I also found a quote hobsbawm delivered for his funeral from this obituary : "Since I am unable to come to his funeral, let me, as an old friend and constant admirer of Moshe Lewin, drop a metaphorical handful of earth on his grave from afar. Nobody has made fewer concessions to the intellectual fashions of the times. He recognized the absurdity of Russia even at its darkest moments, and nobody made better jokes about it. They were signs of an indestructible hope. Nobody has taught me more about understanding the USSR and post-Soviet Russia than he. I will miss the insight, the endless curiosity and the moral independence of this man. Farewell, Moshe"