•
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Feature Story
•
They Said
It!
•Amos
Elon's book "The Israelis: the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict/
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TIMELINE •••
Amos Elon dies at 82; the
provocative writer examined the
roots of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. The New York Times,
JERUSALEM reported that Amos
Elon, an Israeli essayist and
author who examined his society's
flaws and myths, explored some of
its greatest figures and became
for many years its most renowned
public intellectual, died Monday
in Italy, where he had made his
home since 2004. He was
82.
•••
His
wife, Beth, said the cause was
leukemia.
•••
The
author of nine books, Mr. Elon
rose to international fame in the
early 1970s after the publication
of "The Israelis: Founders and
Sons," an affectionate but
unsparing portrait of early
Zionists. Israel's founders, he
argued, had failed to properly
acknowledge the people living on
the land that the Zionists had
come to reclaim. They had
embarked on "a national and
social renaissance in their
ancient homeland," he wrote, but
"were blind to the possibility
that the Arabs of Palestine might
entertain similar hopes for
themselves."
The LA Times reported that,
Amos Elon dies at 82; provocative
writer examined the roots of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
•••
Amos Elon's book "The Israelis:
Founders and Sons," challenged
the image of his country's
Zionist founders. His portrayal
faulted the European-born
pioneers for being blinded by an
ancient claim to Palestine and
failing to consider the fate of
Arabs living there.
•••
His second book, 'The Israelis:
Founders and Sons,' challenged
the heroic image of his country's
Zionist founders. •
Part
02h
TIMELINE
- •1926
-
Born
July 4, 1926, in Vienna, Elon
moved to Palestine with his
family in 1933, arriving so
young, he said later, that he
never considered himself "an
ideological Israeli." In a 2004
interview with Ari Shavit of
Haaretz, he said he continued to
believe in the need for "a state
of the Jews in Israel" but added:
"Zionism has exhausted itself,
precisely because it accomplished
its aims."
•••
Behind horn-rimmed glasses, the
writer exuded intelligence and
refinement that earned him the
nickname "The Viennese" among
newspaper colleagues. Shavit
described him as "serious,
German, stern." A secular Jew, he
maintained a lifelong attachment
to German culture; spoke German,
English and Hebrew fluently; and
wrote in all three languages. •
1948
-He
grew up in Tel Aviv and served
three years in the Hagana, the
paramilitary forerunner of
Israel's army, while it was
fighting against British rule.
After Israel gained independence
in 1948, he studied law and
history at Hebrew University and
Cambridge. •
1951
-After
starting at Haaretz in 1951, he
became a correspondent in Europe
and the United States. In
Washington he met American-born
Beth Drexler, who became his wife
and an editor for much of his
work. She survives, along with
their daughter, Danae, of New
York; two grandchildren; and a
sister. •
1971
-Elon
was a well-known journalist in
Israel in 1971 when his second
book, "The Israelis: Founders and
Sons," challenged the heroic
image of his country's Zionist
founders and gained him
international recognition. His
portrayal was generally
sympathetic but faulted the
European-born pioneers for being
blinded by an ancient claim to
Palestine and failing to consider
the fate of Arabs already living
there.
•••
"The Arabs bore no responsibility
for the centuries-long suffering
of Jews in Europe," Elon wrote,
voicing criticism that is common
in Israel today but was rare at
the time. "Whatever their
subsequent follies and outrages
might be, the punishment of the
Arabs for the sins of Europe must
burden the conscience of Israelis
for a long time to come." •
1972
-He
returned to that theme in other
works on the Middle East while
also writing historical
biographies and other scholarly
examinations of Jewish life in
Europe before and during World
War II. Some of his nine books
became international best
sellers, and many of his essays
appeared in the New York Review
of Books.
•••
His columns in the Israeli
newspaper Haaretz, where he
worked off and on for five
decades, established him as an
early critic of Israel's
occupation of the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, territories captured
from Arab nations in the 1967
Middle East war. He wrote that
the occupation had corrupted and
burdened Israel, turning it into
a more militaristic society and
making its 1967 victory "worse
than a defeat."
•••
After gaining stature as one of
Israel's best known intellectuals
and social critics, Elon withdrew
from the country late in life --
disillusioned over its direction
and the seemingly intractable
nature of its conflict with the
Palestinians.
•••
Tom Segev, a prominent Israeli
historian, said Elon's critique
of Israel's founders and early
policies paved the way for freer
debate about the Zionist project
in the nation's contemporary
discourse. "He filled an
important role in Israel, as one
of the first to observe the
society without being a prisoner
of its ancient and national
myths," said Segev, who followed
in Elon's footsteps as a Haaretz
columnist and author of
iconoclastic bestsellers. "This
required a critical eye and a
somewhat removed and ironic
perspective." •
1973
-Shortly
after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war
Elon had a chance meeting at
Harvard with Sana Hassan, the
daughter of Egypt's ambassador to
the United States at the time. A
series of conversations between
them was published the following
year as "Between Enemies: A
Compassionate Dialogue Between an
Israeli and an Arab."
••
1976
-
TheRightFix - Elon finished
the drafting the legislation and
lobbying the Israeli government
before the
2009
Holyland / U.S.A. Obama peace
process
began.
••
• The Pity of It All: German
Jews Before Hitler. (2008)
•••
• Founder: Meyer Amschel
Rothschild and His Time
(2003)
•••
• Pity of It All: A History
of the Jews in Germany 1743-1933
(2002)
•••
• A Blood-Dimmed Tide:
Dispatches from the Middle East
(1997)
•••
• Founder: A Portrait of the
First Rothschild and His Time
(1996)
•••
• Jerusalem, Battlegrounds
of Memory (1995)
•••
• Jerusalem, City of Mirrors
(1989)
•••
• The Holy Land from the Air
(1987)
•••
• The Israelis: Photographs
of a Day in May (1985)
•••
• The Israelis: Founders and
Sons (1983)
•••
• Timetable, a Novel
(1980)
•••
• Flight Into Egypt
(1980)
•••
• Understanding Israel: A
Social Studies Approach
(1976)
•••
• Herzl, a Biography
(1975)
•••
• Between Enemies; A
Compassionate Dialogue Between an
Israeli and an Arab (1974)
•••
• The Israelis: Founders and
Sons (1971)
•••
• Journey Through a Haunted
Land-the new Germany. Transl. In
einem heimgesuchten Land, Michael
Roloff
(1967) •
1979
-Egypt's
president at the time, Anwar
Sadat, was reportedly furious
over the book, which helped
shatter a taboo against
Israeli-Egyptian contacts. But
three years later he became the
first Arab leader to visit
Israel, a breakthrough that led
to Israel's 1979 peace agreement
with Egypt. Free to travel there,
Elon wrote "Flight Into Egypt," a
book based on interviews with
Egyptians who told him the
country had tired of the cycle of
war.
•••
"In all my writing I have felt
that my most important task was
to work for that emotional
detente and ideological
disarmament which is so necessary
for any Arab-Israeli settlement
in the future," he said in a 1987
interview for the publication
Contemporary Authors.
•••
Elon's books included biographies
of Theodor Herzl, the founder of
Zionism, and Meyer Amschel
Rothschild, the patriarch of the
Rothschild banking dynasty. •
2002
-His
2002 book "The Pity of It All,"
his last volume, portrayed German
Jewish life from the mid-18th
century until Adolf Hitler's rise
to power. The book explores the
complex relationships between
educated Jews who wanted to be
complete Germans and Germans who
respected Jews but could not
fully accept them.
•••
The failure to achieve a
multicultural Germany, in which
one could be both Jewish and
German, was tragic in light of
what befell the Jews under
Hitler, Elon wrote. But the book
challenges a widely held view
that pathology in the German
culture made the Holocaust
inevitable. •2004
-Elon
sold his West Bank Jerusalem
apartment in 2004 and retreated
to his longtime vacation home in
Italy's Tuscan region, where he
could write about Israel from a
distance. Many Israelis were
astonished by his departure; some
called him an elitist who simply
couldn't accept an Israel that
didn't resemble Europe.
•••
Interviewed by Haaretz that year
while packing up in Jerusalem, he
said he felt "disappointment"
over the country's nationalistic
policies and the religious
influence in its politics,
especially since the 1967
war.
•••
"Nothing has changed here in the
last 40 years," he said. "The
problems are exactly the same as
they always were. •
2009
-May
27, 2009 / Reporting from
Jerusalem -- Amos Elon, whose
critical explorations of Jewish
history and the roots of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict made
him one of the most distinguished
and provocative Israeli authors
of his time, died Monday in
Italy, his home for the last five
years. He was 82.
•••
His wife, Beth, said the cause of
death was
leukemia.
The solutions were already known
back then. But nobody paid
attention. I found myself saying
the same thing all the time. And
I started to bore myself." •
03h
•
Library
of Congress. Photo: In this
photo from the 1960s, Barbara
Ringer is the only woman at a
hearing on copyright 1956-1976
Copyright revision law.
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FOR MORE COPYRIGHT
STORY
•
Amos Elon - BOOKS AND REVIEWS OF
PAST WORKS - Library of
Congress
• Amos
Elon •••
From the Review •••
February 14, 2008: Olmert &
Israel: The Change •••
Lords of the Land: The War Over
Israel's Settlements in the
Occupied Territories,
1967&endash;2007 by Idith Zertal
and Akiva Eldar, translated from
the Hebrew by Vivian Eden
•••
Walled: Israeli Society at an
Impasse by Sylvain Cypel
•••
Son of the Cypresses: Memories,
Reflections, and Regrets from a
Political Life by Meron
Benvenisti, translated from the
Hebrew by Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta,
in consultation with Michael
Kaufman-Lacusta
•••
April 26, 2007: Hard Truth About
Palestine
•••
Once Upon a Country: A
Palestinian Life by Sari
Nusseibeh, with Anthony David
•••
March 15, 2007: Thanks for the
Memory
•••
Istanbul: Memories and the City
by Orhan Pamuk, translated from
the Turkish by Maureen Freely
•••
October 19, 2006: The Triumph of
a Double Life
•••
Five Germanys I Have Known by
Fritz Stern
•••
October 5, 2006: Avigdor and
Victor (letter)
•••
June 22, 2006: What Does Olmert
Want?
•••
The Accidental Empire: Israel and
the Birth of the Settlements,
1967&endash;1977 by Gershom
Gorenberg
•••
February 23, 2006: A Shrine to
Mussolini
•••
The Body of Il Duce: Mussolini's
Corpse and the Fortunes of Italy
by Sergio Luzzatto, translated
from the Italian by Frederika
Randall
•••
May 26, 2005: The Ghost City
•••
Alexandria: City of Memory by
Michael Haag
•••
May 26, 2005: Amos Oz and the
Darkness of Europe (letter)
•••
December 16, 2004: In Abraham's
Vineyard
•••
A Tale of Love and Darkness by
Amos Oz, translated from the
Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange
•••
July 15, 2004: War Without
End
•••
How Israel Lost: The Four
Questions by Richard Ben
Cramer
•••
Waging Peace: Israel and the
Arabs, 1948&endash;2003 by Itamar
Rabinovich
•••
April 8, 2004: The 'Jewish
Bismarck'
•••
The Patron: A Life of Salman
Schocken, 1877&endash;1959 by
Anthony David
•••
February 26, 2004: A Likud
'Liberal'? (letter)
•••
January 15, 2004: A Very Special
Relationship
•••
Support Any Friend: Kennedy's
Middle East and the Making of the
US&endash;Israel Alliance by
Warren Bass
•••
Israel and the Bomb by Avner
Cohen
•••
December 4, 2003: An Alternative
Future: An Exchange
•••
October 23, 2003: Could He Have
Stopped Hitler?
•••
Gustav Stresemann: Weimar's
Greatest Statesman by Jonathan
Wright
•••
May 29, 2003: An Unsentimental
Education
•••
Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an
Unexpected Life by Queen Noor
•••
May 29, 2003: Money for Israel
(letter)
•••
April 10, 2003: Wise
Survivors
•••
Scholem, Arendt, Klemperer:
Intimate Chronicles in Turbulent
Times by Steven E. Aschheim
•••
Gershom Scholem: A Life in
Letters, 1914&endash;1982 edited
and translated from the German by
Anthony David Skinner
•••
December 19, 2002: Israelis &
Palestinians: What Went
Wrong?
•••
October 24, 2002: The
Wanderer
•••
The Red Count: The Life and Times
of Harry Kessler by Laird M.
Easton
•••
May 23, 2002: No Exit
•••
February 14, 2002: 'The
Deadlocked City': An Exchange
•••
November 15, 2001: A German
Requiem
•••
Two Millennia of German Jewish
History Jewish Museum, Berlin
•••
October 18, 2001: The Deadlocked
City
•••
Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle
for the Holy City by Bernard
Wasserstein
•••
July 5, 2001: Scenes from a
Marriage
•••
Within Four Walls: The
Correspondence between Hannah
Arendt and Heinrich Blücher,
1936&endash;1968 edited and with
an introduction by Lotte Kohler,
translated from the German by
Peter Constantine
•••
July 20, 2000: 'The View from
Damascus' (letter)
•••
February 24, 2000: 'Exile's
Return' (letter)
•••
November 18, 1999: Exile's
Return
•••
Out of Place: A Memoir by Edward
W. Said
•••
June 10, 1999: Hannah Arendt's
Integrity (letter)
•••
February 18, 1999: 'A Fugitive
from Egypt and Palestine'
•••
Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a
Jewess by Hannah Arendt, First
complete edition, edited by
Liliane Weissberg, translated by
Richard Winston, by Clara
Winston
•••
November 20, 1997: Death for
Sale
•••
Masks: An Attempt about Shoah an
exhibition at the Jewish Museum,
Vienna, July 25-October 26,
1997
•••
November 6, 1997: The Case of
Hannah Arendt
•••
June 26, 1997: At Pharaoh's
Court
•••
Egypt's Road to Jerusalem: A
Diplomat's Story of the Struggle
for Peace in the Middle East by
Boutros Boutros-Ghali
•••
March 27, 1997: Jerusalem
Blues
•••
City of Stone: The Hidden History
of Jerusalem by Meron
Benvenisti
•••
December 19, 1996: Israel and the
End of Zionism
•••
January 11, 1996: 'Israel's
Demons': An Exchange
•••
December 21, 1995: Israel's
Demons
•••
April 6, 1995: One Foot on the
Moon
•••
September 22, 1994: Politics and
Archaeology
•••
April 21, 1994: Look Over
Jordan
•••
October 7, 1993: The Politics of
Memory
•••
August 12, 1993: A Visit with
Arafat
•••
June 10, 1993: The Jews' Jews
•••
Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations
with Palestinians in Israel by
David Grossman, translated by
Haim Watzman
•••
May 13, 1993: The Nowhere
City
•••
May 14, 1992: East Germany: Crime
and Punishment
•••
April 23, 1992: In a Former
Country
•••
October 12, 1989: Jerusalem
(letter)
•••
August 17, 1989: Jerusalem: The
Future of the Past
•••
April 14, 1988: From the
Uprising
•••
August 1, 1968: The Israel-Arab
Deadlock
•••
Israel and World Politics by
Theodore Draper
•••
The Road to Jerusalem by Walter
Laqueur The Road to Jerusalem by
Walter Laqueur
•04headlineTVI
Bylines In Memory / Portrait of
Barbara Rigner
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what they want," said Widipedia's
founder at the recent Digital
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"There is no master plan what
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