Jewish Political Studies Review 17:3-4 (Fall 2005)
Barbara Tuchman's Comments on Israel
Moshe Yegar
Although Barbara Tuchman never devoted a book to Jewish or Israeli
history, her perspective on these topics can be gleaned from four articles
on the subject and from some passages in her other writings.
In one article she sought the historical meaning of the Nazis' war
against the European Jews. The silence of the democratic countries
shocked her no less than the crimes themselves.
In 1966, Tuchman visited Israel for the first time, and she described
her impressions in a lengthy article. Her second visit took place a year
later and coincided with the Six Day War, and her detailed and systematic
impressions were published in September 1967.
Tuchman's writings about Israel reveal a high level of sympathy for
the young state and sensitivity to its achievements and problems.
Introduction
The American Jewish historian Barbara Tuchman was born in New
York City on 30 January 1912 and died in Connecticut on 6 February
1989. She was the granddaughter of Henry Morgenthau, Sr., who was
U.S. ambassador in Istanbul from 1913 to 1916. When World War I
broke out and the Turks began to persecute the Jewish community
in Palestine, Morgenthau helped mobilize aid to the beleaguered Yishuv.
Differences of opinion that developed between him and Chaim
Weizmann and some other Zionist leaders in the United States transformed
him into an anti-Zionist. His son, Henry Jr., Barbara's uncle,
was secretary of the treasury during World War II. From 1947 to
1953, he was head of the United Jewish Appeal and chairman of the
Board of the Hebrew University. He was also among the initiators of
Israel Bonds and its chairman from 1951 to 1954.
Barbara's father, Morris Wertheim, was chairman of the American
Jewish Committee from 1941 to 1943. He was married to Alma Morgenthau,
daughter of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. In 1940 Barbara married
a physician, Dr. Lester Reginald Tuchman.
Her first work that brought her recognition was The Bible and the
Sword. She wrote a total of eleven books, receiving the Pulitzer Prize
for two of them. None of her longer studies dealt with Jewish or Israeli
history; with the exception of what she said about Zionism in The
Bible and the Sword and a few scattered passages in her other writings,
she only devoted four articles to this subject. From these, however,
we can glean her perspective on the Jewish people and the state of
Israel.
The Jewish People, Zionism, and Israel
Three of Tuchman's articles on Israel are included in her collection
Practicing History. An article dealing with the reunification of Jerusalem
in June 1967 was omitted. She was in Jerusalem at that time and
personally witnessed the removal of the barbed wire and barriers that
divided the city. However, when it came to choosing essays for the
volume, she felt this one was superficial and did not reflect the power
of the actual events.1
Tuchman's first systematic essay on the Jewish people, published
on 29 May 1966, was her review of Gideon Hausner's book on the
Eichmann trial, Justice in Jerusalem.2 In this article, written in pain
and a great deal of anger, Tuchman attempts to find the historical
meaning of the Germans' murder of Europe's Jews and the world's
allowing it to take place. The German genocide, the indifference of
the Allies, the ban on Jewish refugees from entering the United States
or Palestine, made it clear that, apart from a few exceptions, the non-
Jewish world was quite comfortable with the "Final Solution."3 The
silence of the democratic countries, except for Denmark, Sweden, and
Switzerland,4 shocked her no less than the crimes themselves.
Tuchman castigates Hannah Arendt's term "the banality of evil"
to describe the murder of six million Jews, this having been exactly
the defense used by Eichmann who portrayed himself as just a
routine civil servant. She sharply criticizes those who say the Jews
cooperated with their executioners and went passively to their deaths.
She points to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising as proof that when they
could, Jews fought despite the same awareness of their hopelessness
as their ancestors who fought the Romans. Their brethren in
Palestine also fought against forces that attacked them, but prevailed
and won their independence. She also mentions that the Germans
murdered both Russian and American prisoners of war with no
resistance.5
On another occasion, she points out that the passion to be free
is one of the positive traits of humanity and that the Jews are noted
for fighting for their freedom. She mentions three Jewish rebellions
against foreign rule: the Maccabees against Antiochus, the Zealots
against the Romans, and Simon Bar Kokhba against Hadrian. "The
rebellion was crushed, but the zeal for selfhood, smoldering in exile
through eighteen centuries, was to revive and regain its home in our
time."6 This in essence was her view of Zionism.
Tuchman openly admitted that she was anti-German.7 She believed
there was something cruel and barbaric in this people's character, as
revealed in German acts of brutality at the beginning of World War
I in Belgium that she described in her book Guns of August.
First Impressions of Israel
In 1966, Tuchman visited Israel for the first time. She published her
impressions on 14 January 1967 in a long article in which she conveyed
the facts, historical nature, and significance of the new nation as well
as the feelings it aroused.8 This essay later served as the introduction
of the Fodor tourist guidebook on Israel.
Tuchman points out that: "No nation in the world has so many
drastic problems squeezed in so small a space, under such urgent
pressure of time and heavy burden of history, as Israel." It had to
sustain national existence while coping with the hostile actions of its
four neighboring countries, which together had pledged to annihilate
it. The boycott they had imposed on it prevented commerce, transportation,
and communication on all of its land borders. The article
continues to detail the unique problems Israel was facing.
Tuchman also describes Israel's various accomplishments, and poetically
evokes its "dramatic" desert vistas. "It was no accident that
God was invented and two religions originated here." The ubiquitous
archeological and historical discoveries stimulated her spirit and enabled
her to imagine the many seminal events over the centuries.
She also writes appreciatively about the testimonials that Israel
preserved to the struggle against the British and the War of Independence:
the illegal immigrant ship Af Al Pi Khen in Haifa, the Syrian
tank at Kibbutz Degania, the armored vehicles on the road to Jerusalem,
and of course the commemoration of the Holocaust at the Martyrs
Forest and Yad Vashem. The latter building, as it appeared at the
time of her visit, was in her opinion the most impressive one in all of
Israel: "As such it keeps the memory alive, not merely to mourn but
with a sense, perhaps of some mission to history." Divided Jerusalem
also evoked for her a special emotion tempered with sadness.
Tuchman discusses the Arab enmity toward Israel, and specifically
the terror attacks of Fatah supported by Syria, the Israeli victims, and
the UN condemnation of Israel's retaliatory actions. She suggests that
the Arabs are "paranoid" in their attitude toward Israel, and that the
Jews' rebuilding of the land reminds the Arabs of their failures and
shortcomings. In the War of Independence in 1948 and the Sinai
Campaign in 1956, the Israelis "put territory under their feet at last
in the land they once ruled, and they do not intend to be uprooted
again....In any event, the territory never formed part of an Arab state
in modern times, having passed from Turkish sovereignty to the British
Mandate."
Tuchman went on a comprehensive tour from the northern Galilee
to Eilat. Her account combines stylistic literary depictions of the
scenery with information on the difficult reality of daily life in the
country and the insecurity caused by Arab hostility. Tuchman did not
like Tel Aviv, but was charmed by other places. The development of
Beersheba impressed her, as did, in particular, the construction of the
port of Eilat. She was fascinated by visits to an officers' training school
with its commander Meir Pa'il, and to the school for the General
Staff with its chief Mordechai Gur. Regarding the IDF soldiers, it
struck her that "Jewish sorrow has gone out of their eyes." In general,
she emphasized the Jews' efforts to renew the Land of Israel in contrast
to the neglect by the Arabs and the Turks.
Tuchman found that Israelis "looked different" from Diaspora
Jews. The reason, she concluded, was that "Israel is theirs; here they
are not a minority; they are on top." That did not mean their lives
were easy; they had internal conflicts and tended to political fractiousness.
She was struck, however, by the sense of purpose and motivation.
In Israel, things that were "impossible" like the settlement of
the Land, the draining of the swamps, self-defense against multiple
enemies, or absorbing such large numbers of immigrants, were
achieved. She was especially amazed by the development of the Negev,
which according to the British Peel Commission of 1937 could not
support human inhabitance.
Tuchman was also interested in Israel's water problems, the "Who
is a Jew" debate, the tensions between religious and secular Jews and
between immigrants from Middle Eastern countries and the veteran
Ashkenazi population, and Israel's aid programs to foreign countries.
She recognized the new state's deficiencies, however, and did not say
everything was fine. Materialism was beginning to replace the pioneering
spirit. Thousands of Israelis had left the country seeking a
higher standard of living and less stress - "to escape geography," as
she put it.
Tuchman learned much from her extensive visit. It seems she did
not meet with politicians; at any event, she does not refer to any by
name. The only Israeli leader mentioned in her writings, and that in
only one article that dealt with the limitations of leaders in general,
was Golda Meir. She observes: "her roughness is natural rather than
neurotic, besides required by the circumstances."9
Observations after the Six Day War
Tuchman's affinity for Israel was of a special nature, different from
the identification typical of members of pro-Israeli Jewish organizations.
It was the affinity of an American based on the deep historical
sense that the Jewish people had returned to its homeland. As
she remarked in the introduction to her book Notes from China,
"the restoration of the state of Israel after a gap of nearly two
thousand years struck me to be an event unique in history."10 She
was awed by Israel's perseverance and believed historical justice was
on its side.
Tuchman returned to Israel within a year and wrote her impressions
on the Six Day War in a detailed and sympathetic article that
was published in September 1967.11 She took special interest in the
IDF and its achievements, and opened the piece with the statement:
"A people considered for centuries non-fighters carried out in June
against long odds the nearly most perfect military operation in modern
history." A few years later in April 1972, she slightly qualified her
assessment in a lecture to American officers dealing with the Vietnam
War: "the most nearly perfect, or at any rate the least-snafued, professional
military performance of our time, was that of the Israelis in
the Six-Day War of 1967."12
After describing the new situation brought about by Israel's victory,
she continued: "That the armed forces who achieved this result
drew on statehood of less than twenty years and on a population more
than half immigrant raises questions about the components of effective
military power. Who are the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and how
did they do it?" She responds that while the basic components were
motivation and compelling necessity, these alone would not be adequate
without capacity. Tuchman theorizes that what furnished this
capacity was the brainpower with which this people is endowed, now
channeled for the first time since the Exile into the military art of
defending their own homeland.
Moreover, the IDF General Staff developed an "Israeli answer,"
in terms of tactics, weaponry, and training, to the country's particular
military needs. In part, this reflected the political experience of disillusionment
in pinning one's hopes on others. But the basic factor was
temperamental, deriving from the self-reliance of the early Zionist
settlers from whom the higher-level officers, largely native-born, were
descended. "What forged the Israeli armed forces was that the state
had never known peace."
Tuchman explains that the IDF strategic doctrine is built on three
fundamental realities: no natural obstacles on which to base a defense,
no territory to yield, and no room to retreat. This dictated a principle
of taking the war immediately to the enemy's turf, since unlike other
countries, for Israel defeat means annihilation. Many in Israel knew
from experience, such as the Hebron massacre of 1929, what an Arab
victory portended.
Although Tuchman knew that the phrase "the espresso generation"
was used to describe Israeli youth before the Six Day War, she wrote
that they surprised everyone with their dependability and military
prowess. The article also reviews the reserve-duty system and its origins
in the prestate Haganah and Palmach fighting organizations and in
the ranks of the British army during World War II. She also emphasizes
the IDF's unique lack of foreign advisers.
Having visited the battlefields in Sinai, Jerusalem, and the Golan
Heights, Tuchman writes that it is hard to understand how the soldiers
surmounted the challenges. She then explains the political background
of the war, the abandonment of Israel to its fate by the nations of the
world and the UN, and the widespread feeling in Israel during the
crisis period that the Arabs might complete the work of the "Final
Solution." When war finally broke out, the IDF surged forward as if
released by a spring.
Tuchman devotes several pages to describing the air force and its
detailed preparations for the brilliant destruction of the Arab air forces
while still on the ground. She notes the precision of the intelligence
that the air force and the rest of the IDF had in their possession. She
was also much impressed by the swift and effective care provided by the
army medical corps. She expresses admiration for the IDF's doctrine of
"after me," meaning that officers go first, and cites data on casualties
and the high percentage of officers among them.
Tuchman goes on to compare the IDF soldier and the Arab soldier;
"essentially the war was a conflict of societies." The Jews, who had
realized the Zionist dream of returning to their land and created a
modern state in it, had undergone a mental and emotional revolution.
Instead of passive sufferers, they had become masters of their own
fate. "The Israelis possessed a secret weapon - a homeland." In contrast,
Egypt and Syria, for all their talk of socialism, had not undergone
any change that influenced people's lives and did not have a precious
society to fight and die for. She details the shortcomings of the Arab
armies and claims that the Russian assistance was ill-suited to them.
A Changed Jewish People
"The amazing victory," Tuchman notes, "brought no parades or cheers
or the usual celebrations of triumph. Israel's concentration on grief
over its losses would have seemed exaggerated in any other country.
In Israel, its origin is in the long history of the Jewish people. It comes
from an old, inherited high value placed on human life."
Tuchman concludes the article by observing that the Jewish people,
for so long and so often the victims of violence, have had to become,
against their ethic, users of violence. Exactly as with the United States,
the Jews realized that to win the right of nationhood they would have
to rely on military force. Despite the pride in the IDF, she notes
that many Israelis are troubled by their success. It had been barely a
generation from Auschwitz to the conquest of Sinai and reunification
of Jerusalem. The transformation was very sudden; in less than a
lifetime the Jews had gone from being persecuted to ruling over others.
The question was what they would make of the conquest and what it
would make of them.
* * *
Notes
* This article is derived from a longer study in Hebrew on Barbara Tuchman
and her work as a historian. The article was translated from the Hebrew by
Shalom Bronstein.
1. Barbara Tuchman, Practicing History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981),
pp. 3-4.
2. "The Final Solution," review of Justice in Jerusalem by Gideon Hausner, in
Tuchman, Practicing History, pp. 118-22.
3. Tuchman, Practicing History, p. 212.
4. If she had known then what has subsequently been learned about these three
countries, she would have been more restrained in her praise.
5. Tuchman, "Final Solution."
6. Tuchman, Practicing History, p. 240.
7. Ibid., p. 85.
8. "Israel: Land of Unlimited Impossibilities," in ibid., pp. 123-45.
9. Ibid., p. 290.
10. Barbara Tuchman, Notes from China (New York: Macmillan, 1972), pp. xixii.
11. Tuchman, "Israel's Swift Sword," in Practicing History, pp. 173-87.
12. Tuchman, Practicing History, p. 280.
* * *
DR. MOSHE YEGAR joined the Israel Foreign Service in 1956 and retired in 1995. He served, among other places, as consul-general in New York (1985-1988), ambassador in Stockholm (1988-1990), and ambassador in Prague (1993-1995). He is the author of three books on Islam in Southeast Asia and five books on various issues of Israel�s foreign policy. His most recent book (in Hebrew) is on the history of Israel�s diplomacy in Asia.
The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect
those of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
The above essay appears in the Fall 2005 issue of the Jewish Political Studies Review, the first and only journal dedicated to the study of Jewish political institutions and behavior, Jewish political thought, and Jewish public affairs.
Published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (http://www.jcpa.org/), the JPSR appears twice a year in the form of two double issues, either of a general nature or thematic, with contributors including outstanding scholars from the United States, Israel, and abroad. The hard copy of the Spring 2005 issue will be available in the coming weeks."
From the Editors: Manfred Gerstenfeld and Shmuel Sandler
The Forgotten Narrative: Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries by Avi Beker
European Politics: Double Standards toward Israel by Manfred Gerstenfeld
Annals of Israeli-Albanian Contacts on Establishing Diplomatic Relations by Yosef Govrin
Perspectives - Jomo Kenyatta and Israel by Asher Naim
Assessing the American Jewish Institutional Response to Global Anti-Semitism by Steven Windmueller
The New Muslim Anti-Semitism: Exploring Novel Avenues of Hatred by Raphael Israeli
Arab and Muslim Anti-Semitism in Sweden by Mikael Tossavainen
Kill a Jew - Go to Heaven:
The Perception of the Jew in Palestinian Society by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
Israel in the Australian Media by Tzvi Fleischer
Barbara Tuchman's Comments on Israel by Moshe Yegar
Hidden in Plain Sight: Alexis de Tocqueville's Recognition of the Jewish Origin of the Idea of Equality by Joel Fishman
Perspectives - The Seventh-Century Christian Obsession with the Jews: A Historical Parallel for the Present?
by Rivkah Duker Fishman
Book Reviews:
Isi Leibler on Tower of Babble: How the United Nations
Has Fueled Global Chaos by Dore Gold
Shalom Freedman on Iran's Nuclear Option: Tehran's Quest
for the Atom Bomb by Al J. Venter
Shalom Freedman on Rabin and Israel's National Security
by Efraim Inbar
Freddy Eytan on The Long Journey to Asia
by Moshe Yegar
Susanne Urban on From Cooperation to Complicity:
Degussa in the Third Reich by Peter Hayes,
and The Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank
by Harold James
Joel Fishman on The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People
under Siege by Kenneth Levin
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Rising from the Muck: The New
Anti-Semitism in Europe by Pierre-André
Taguieff
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Les territoires perdus de la
République: Antisémitisme, racisme et sexisme en milieu
scolaire by Emmanuel Brenner
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Holocaust Justice: The Battle for
Restitution in America's Courts by Michael J. Bazyler
Shalom Freedman on Double or Nothing: Jewish Families
and Mixed Marriages by Sylvia Barack Fishman
About the Contributors
Jewish Political Studies Review
ORDER FORM
Invoice No. ________
Date _______________
Annual Subscription Rates:
|
Individual
|
Institutions
& Libraries
|
Students
|
Outside Israel:
|
$26
|
$40
|
$20
|
In Israel:
|
NIS 70
|
NIS 110
|
NIS 40
|
Back Issues or Single issues - $12 each
Enclosed is my check for US$/NIS: ____________
Name: _____________________________________________________________
Address: _____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
All checks should be made payable and mailed to:
IN THE US:
Center for Jewish Community Studies
Baltimore Hebrew University
5800 Park Heights Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21215
|
IN ISRAEL:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
13 Tel Hai Street
Jerusalem 92107 ISRAEL
|
|