Chen Malul

The Difficulty of Belief: Even When the Atrocities Take Place Nearby

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: From the day that the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to fools and children.- Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 12b Our sages taught that with the destruction of the first temple, Divine prophecy was taken from the 'professional' prophets and instead, given to two surprising groups – fools and children. If so, perhaps it isn't surprising that the scale of the destruction wrought by the Holocaust was unimaginable; certainly, it could not... Continue reading

Abba Eban's Visit to Auschwitz

Shortly after his appointment as Foreign Minister in 1966, Abba Eban invited Moshe Raviv to serve as his political secretary. Upon taking office Eban decided to survey "foreign policy lines and our relationships with the nations of the world, region by region." The new Foreign Minister payed special attention to what Raviv referred to in his memoirs as, "The weakness of our relationship with the countries of Eastern Europe." "This situation was created as a result of Moscow's dictates which... Continue reading