On the morning of September 12, 2001, David Solway was enjoying breakfast in a café on the idyllic Greek island of Tilos. At first believing that the mayhem flickering on the TV screen was a rerun of a B war movie, he soon realized he was viewing the opening stages of the next world war. "From that moment on," he writes, "nothing was the same." In the coming weeks, Solway relentlessly scrutinized the values and beliefs he accepted as gospel. As a member of the approved Left, educated in the roiling universities of the Student Revolution in the utopian Sixties, Solway was duly anti-colonialist, anti-corporatist, anti-Zionist, and postmodern. But his stance, he admits, was founded in "ignorance and laziness" and was no longer tenable. A fresh point of view was necessary. The "fresh point of view" evolved into this book. Using Michel Houellebecq’s novel Platformand his own long-neglected Jewish roots as his starting points, Solway’s investigation leads him to today’s central predicament: the onslaught of theologically inspired terrorist movements that thrive parasitically on the left-liberal belief system that dominates the sensibility of the West. We must recognize, Solway insists, that terror and antisemitism are intimately related; that our very civilization is under prolonged attack; and that, for too many years, we have evaded the truth, craving asylum in conciliation, sophistry, and equivocation. The Big Lie is at once a compelling analysis of our present situation and a stirring call to all of us to reconsider the concepts through which we react to the world.

The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism, and Identity

Politics & Social Sciences

David Solway

Politics & Government

Lester, Mason & Begg

It was the mid-1970s news report about twelve Syrian Jews being blown up in a minefield while trying to escape their country that brought home to Judy Feld Carr the terrible plight of Syria’s Jewish population. Like other Jews who remained trapped in Arab lands following the formation of the State of Israel, Syrian Jews lived in daily peril, virtual prisoners of a totalitarian regime, their every move closely monitored by the Muhabarat (the Syrian Secret Police), with extortion, imprisonment, and torture a constant reality. Over the next thirty years, “Mrs. Judy” (as she was known to the people she helped) publicly championed the cause of Syrian Jews as she secretly negotiated their escape–dealing with smugglers, bribing officials, haggling over travel documents, arranging medical aid, and funnelling money to those in need, even to those in prison. The Rescuer is the intensely dramatic story of the heroic and deeply humanitarian actions of one seemingly ordinary woman, a compelling glimpse into the workings of one Islamic regime, and a testament to the difference that one individual’s actions can have on the lives of thousands.

The Rescuer: The Amazing True Story of How One Woman Helped Save the Jews of Syria

Troper, Harold

Biographies & Memoirs

From the New Testament to The Diary of Anne Frank to current objections to the Harry Potter series–dubbed the most frequently challenged books of the 21st century by the American Library Association–the tradition of banning, censoring, and challenging books has been remarkably enduring. Forbidden Fruit is fundamentally an apologia for the freedom to read. Author Pearce Carefoote’s principal interest is not so much in the morality of censorship as in its ultimate futility. In a world where freedom of speech, ideas, and religion clash with various forms of fundamentalism, where, post—9/11, democratic societies debate the limits to freedom of speech, Forbidden Fruit calls on all of us to examine the long history of censoring ideas and reminds us that the impetus to ban books is still very much alive. Many of the works discussed in the book are very familiar and most readers will be surprised to see the writing that has been and continues to be challenged in Western society. While most citizens of a democracy say that they oppose literary censorship and support the freedom of expression, Carefoote provokes us to face some of the thorny questions of modern censorship: Where do we stand when the nation’s largest bookseller decides not to carry Hitler’s Mein Kampf? How do we respond when a high school teacher has been disciplined for assigning The Merchant of Venice in a public school? Or when the only bookstore in a small town decides not to carry The Satanic Verses for fear of reprisals? Or when certain magazines and novels, fall into that grey area between literature and pornography. Ironically, it is the Internet, as Carefoote points out, that may finally force governments, schools, and families to talk about what is appropriate for reading and viewing and what is not–and, more importantly, why.

Forbidden Fruit: Banned, Censored, and Challenged Books from Dante to Harry Potter

Literature & Fiction

Pearce J. Carefoote

History & Criticism

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