Inevitably, being Jewish was the central fact of their lives, and they devoted much of their careers to wrestling with the historical and political meaning of Jewishness. . The cover of The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem, newly published in English (edited by Marie Luise Knott and translated from German by Anthony David), underscores these similarities with a visual rhyme. Arendt and Scholem are each portrayed, in separate photographs, in the act of consulting a giant tome against a background of crowded bookshelves—emblems of lives spent reading, writing, and thinking. Yet as these letters show, it was the very things that Arendt and Scholem had in common that turned out to be responsible for the ultimate rupture of their friendship.”
Now that the full correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem has finally been published, we can begin to understand the contours and dynamics of a relationship that was always complex. These letters illuminate the historical record by placing into context and documenting not only the profound differences between these powerful personalities but also their commonalities, shared activities, interests, and loyalties
The lives of Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem were variations on the same fate. Two of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century… Both would end up fleeing the collapse of German Jewry and remaking their lives abroad—Scholem in Palestine, where he emigrated in 1923, and Arendt in France, where she escaped from Hitler in 1933, and then in the United States….
But what was the future of the Jews after the Holocaust? More particularly, where was this future—in Israel or the diaspora? This was the central question that divided Arendt and Scholem, whose attitudes toward Zionism were both complex, but finally very different. …
She believed that the life of the Jews, like her own Jewish life, was properly international, with deep roots in Europe and America. The evolution of Zionism, under the pressure of war and Holocaust, toward a more assertive claim on Jewish statehood left her alienated. …
This difference between Arendt and Scholem emerged into the open in 1946, after Arendt published an article titled “Zionism Reconsidered” in the "Menorah Journal"…. In this piece, Arendt offered a biting critique of what she called “the tragic abdication of political leadership by the vanguard of the Jewish people”—that is, the Jews of Palestine.... The quest for a Jewish state could only end in permanent hostility between Jews and Arabs; and because a Jewish state could not survive without the protection of a great power, Jews would end up in the very position of dependency that Zionism was meant to cure…. Arendt’s analysis of what went wrong with Zionism began at the very beginning, with Theodor Herzl”….
It was the publication, in 1963, of Arendt’s "Eichmann in Jerusalem" that finally brought the curtain down on the correspondence, and on the friendship. Scholem’s hostile reaction to the book, and Arendt’s indignant, disappointed response, were a replay of the exchange over “Zionism Reconsidered” 17 years earlier….
Half a century later, Scholem and Arendt offer an exceptionally clear illustration of the clash between particularism and universalism, which remains one of the major issues in Jewish life.
As a tour guide in London, I particularly like this book for the old photographs of London both beyond and in the centre. I particularly have an interest in the old London Docks area at Shad Thames near Tower Bridge. These old docks have a story to tell and the photographs in this book allow me to contrast modern day images and try and show the way that the Thames in this area has changed over the passage of time. Excellent book and if you're interested in the history of London and it's river, then do not hesitate to buy this book. You will not be disappointed
Journey along the length of the famed Thames River on a spectacular photographic tour. Spanning almost 150 years, the images in this evocative history include the work of some of the pioneers and leading exponents of topographical and architectural photography. View the rural Thames as it approaches London. See the riverside towns, the working docks and warehouses, the development of the web of bridges that now links north and south, barges, sailing ships and warships, the great flood
About the Author
Stephen Croad was born in Bridgwater, Somerset, in 1946 and was educated at the local grammar school. After reading the History of European Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, he joined the staff of the National Monuments Record in 1968. He became Head of the architectural record in 1981, retired in 1996 and was appointed MBE in the following year. He is the author of London's Bridges (1983) and has been a member of the committee of the national Inventory of War Memorials at the Imperial War Museum since its inception in 1989. He was elected to the Council of the London Topographical Society in 1996 and elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1990 and of the Royal Geographical Society in 2000.
Who but a masochist or a cheerleader would want to relive adolescence? For many of us, it’s a terrible time, with heavy-duty social pressure to join a clique, opposed by the equally wild desire to rebel. As if that weren’t enough, there’s sexual identity to deal with, and first love, that gut-wrenching emotion that usually winds up causing so much more pain than pleasure.
All these concerns are explored in Mariko Tamaki’s graphic novel “Skim,” the story of 16-year-old Kimberly Keiko Cameron, known as “Skim” to her classmates. A Wiccan-practicing goth who goes to a private girls’ school, Skim is the quintessential outsider, a dark-haired, Asian-American in a sea of Caucasian blondes, not skim (slim) like the girls in the popular clique, thus her nickname.
Two parallel story lines involving star-crossed love unfold as the book opens: the first concerns the uproar at school over the suicide of the boyfriend of one of Skim’s classmates, Katie Matthews. When the distraught Katie subsequently falls off a roof and breaks both arms (it’s unclear at first whether it’s an accident or not), the school administration goes into anxious overdrive, organizing group therapy sessions and an outdoor memorial service where the girls release white balloons with hopeful messages written on them.
The second plot line involves Skim’s out-of-bounds friendship with Ms. Archer, a neo-hippie English teacher with wild red hair and a penchant for extravagant costumes. The friendship crosses the line when Ms. Archer, who seems to be hiding something behind her overdramatic persona, acts on their shared feelings and unwisely allows their relationship to develop into a romance of sorts.
The black and white pictures by Jillian Tamaki, Mariko’s cousin, create a nuanced, three-dimensional portrait of Skim, conveying a great deal of information often without the help of the text. The book’s most striking use of purely visual communication occurs in a lush and lovely double-page tableau of Skim and Ms. Archer exchanging a kiss in the woods that leaves the reader (and maybe even the participants) wondering who kissed whom. In another sequence, Skim and Ms. Archer sip tea without ever making eye contact, the pictures and minimal text communicating the uncomfortable emotional charge in the room and the two characters’ difficulty in knowing what to say to each other.
CreditIllustration by Jillian Tamaki
Tamaki’s palette often becomes noticeably darker or lighter to signal a change in mood. Various night scenes communicate Skim’s depression, her unhappy moon-face isolated in fields of inky black, streetlights casting long, lonely shadows. In contrast, Tamaki sets the outdoor memorial service for the dead boyfriend on a frozen winter field, the participants drawn in lightly, almost as if they’re ghosts, the snowy backdrop and blank white balloons (shown caught on bare winter trees) conveying absence and emptiness.
The cover itself, an extreme close-up of Skim’s face (and the only picture in color), seems a cross between a Lichtenstein Pop Art portrait and one of those sensual Japanese wood block prints of women from earlier centuries, showing a moody, introspective girl poised on the brink of womanhood.
Graphic novels, by the nature of their form, often use as little text as possible; the dialogue is sometimes hardly more than a serviceable vehicle to drive the action. In “Skim,” however, the spare dialogue is just right, capturing the cynical and biting way that Skim and her classmates tend to talk to one another.
In contrast, Skim’s diary entries reveal her vulnerable, innocent side. Here she is describing the almost painful physical sensation that love can provoke: “My stomach feels like it’s popping, like an ice cube in a warm Pepsi.” “It feels like there’s a broken washing machine inside my chest.” Confronted by a worried high school guidance counselor, she confides to her diary, “Truthfully I am always a little depressed but that is because I am 16 and everyone is stupid (ha-ha-ha). I doubt it has anything to do with being a goth.”
“Skim” — a winner of a 2008 New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award — is a convincing chronicle of a teenage outsider who has enough sense to want to stay outside. In the final section of the story, titled appropriately “Goodbye (Hello),” Skim defies the shallow, popular clique and walks out of a school dance with Katie. She’s cast off her nickname and is “Kim” now, a name more true to the person she is slowly becoming. And Katie is slowly beginning to heal, too.
All in all, “Skim” offers a startlingly clear and painful view into adolescence for those of us who possess it only as a distant memory. It’s a story that deepens with successive rereadings. But what will teenagers think? Maybe that they’ve found a bracingly honest story by a writer who seems to remember exactly what it was like to be 16 and in love for the first time.
