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halfway in violence between the Hagana and the Stern group). Koestler's
defense of the Jewish terrorists seems unqualified. Not only do they spirit
illegal immigrants into the country, but they also keep the Arabs quiet
by tossing bombs into Arab market places in retaliation for attacks on
Jews. They re-assert Jewish dignity by taking fate into their own hands.
The conclusive evidence as to Koestler's stand on Jewish politics is the
fact that he dedicates his book to the memory of Vladimir Jabotinsky,
the founder and late leader of Revisionism, a heretical Zionism that in
its attitude toward socialism, the Arabs, and violence can, without dis–
tortion, be likened to fascism. Here, just where we most expect it, Koestler
fails for the first time to see a moral dilemma. But just here something
deeper than morality is at stake for Koestler: namely, his own Jewishness.
The chief feat of this novel and that which will some day be its only
claim on our memories is that it is the first time a Jew openly confesses
his own self-hatred. "Self-hatred is the J ew's patriotism," Koestler quotes
somebody as saying. And Joseph writes in his journal: "I became a
socialist because I hated the poor; and I became a Hebrew because I
hated the Yid." When Jews bomb and shoot they are no longer Yids,
they behave just like gentiles, they even begin to handle themselves and
look like gentiles. Time and again Joseph suffers pangs of revulsion at
the sight and behavior of the still unreconstructed Jews in Palestine, but
when it comes to describing the junior officers of the terrorist organiza–
tion, Koestler likens them, in his newfound Anglophilia, to the members
of an (English) officers' mess, with "the air of young men from good
families-with keen but reserved faces, well-groomed hair.... "
Koestler is entitled to his opinion of European J ews, or rather his
acceptance of the majority gentile verdict on them; I myself want to
take time out only to quarrel with his lack of sophistication on this score.
It is possible, I want to suggest, to adopt standards of evaluation other
than those of Western Europe. It is possible that by "world-historical"
standards the European J ew represents a higher type of human being
than any yet achieved in history. I do not say that this is so, but I say it
is possible and that there is much to argue for its possibility. No one, I
say further, has any right to discuss the "Jewish question" seriously un–
less he is willing to consider other standards than those of Western
Europe. And in so far as their acceptance of the gentile verdict on the
European Jew motivates so many of the Zionist leaders, I question their
right to decide the Jewish question.
-Aside from all this, and beyond all this, Koestler's own egregiously
false notion of what the Anglo-Saxon is (a notion that moves underneath
and informs this book) disqualifies him even more profoundly.
If
he
fails to recognize the Anglo-Saxon how can he recognize the Jew?
CLEMENT GREENBERG
