Sublime

MONTHS AFTER THE KAHAN Commission report, Menachem Begin—in poor health, depressed by the war, and profoundly alone in the wake of his wife’s death—resigned and retreated to his home. For the next decade, until his death in 1992, he did not exit his apartment except for memorial ceremonies for his wife and medical appointments. Yitzhak Shamir, who

“What have you done to us?” Ben-Gurion shouted. “You, the nations who love freedom and justice, the fighters for democracy, liberty, equality, socialism? What have you done to the Jewish people as you stand before the endless, unceasing flow of our blood, without lifting a finger, without offering help, without commanding the killer, in language he

Brenner, complex though he was, was perhaps the cultural icon of the Second Aliyah. His work, still considered brilliant, surfaced issues with which Israel continues to wrestle. He would have undoubtedly done even more than he managed in his brief life, but he was murdered by an Arab mob in the 1921 Jaffa riots.