The Toynbee-Herzog Debate

Elder of Ziyon
24 August '10

From Ha'aretz in 2007:

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) was an important British historian, who through his controversial theory on civilizations found a place in Israeli and Jewish awareness as an "anti-Semite." According to his theory, civilizations, like human beings, have life cycles that are marked by rises and falls. But the story of the Jewish people, who were determined to survive 2,000 years in the Diaspora only to rise again as a modern nation, did not suit his theory. Thus Toynbee described the Jews as a historic "fossil" - not dead, true, but also not really alive.

When he published his theory at the beginning of the 1960s, he was invited to a debate. The person who invited him was Dr. Yaakov Herzog, at the time Israel's ambassador to Canada, son of the former chief rabbi Yitzhak Herzog and the younger brother of Chaim Herzog, a brilliant scholar and diplomat. Many of Foreign Ministry officials were wary of this debate, which was reminiscent of the mythological word battles in the Middle Ages between Jews and Christians. In the end, however, all those who were present at the debate that took place in January 1961 in Montreal were convinced that Herzog had won.

An email correspondent brought this to my attention and asked if I could find the transcript of that debate. Well, not quite, but the Canadian Jewish Chronicle summarized the entire debate point-by-point, and even though it occurred nearly forty years ago, Toynbee's criticism of Israel sounds exactly the same as those of today's critics - except that Toynbee actually had some regard for the truth. Herzog's successful counter- arguments apply today as well as they did then.

Here is their description of the debate:

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.