Perfidy (Hardcover)

by Ben Hecht (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In the Kastner affair, as it is known, a seemingly insignificant refugee from Hungary accuses an important member of David Ben Gurion s Mapai party of collaborating with the Nazis during the murder of Hungarian Jewry. Over 30 years out-of-print, Perfidy is back, with murder, conspiracy and deep betrayal at its disturbing core. Playwright and historian of public conscience, Ben Hecht chronicles one of the most sensational yet least remembered stories in the history of Israel.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Milah Press, Incorporated (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0964688638
• ISBN-13: 978-0964688636
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #69,085 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Airing Dirty Laundry..., October 6, 2002

By	E. Martin "scalawagg" (US) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book gives new meaning to the phrase "cult classic." Published in the early 1960's it deals with one of the great "cause celebres" in Israeli history--the Kastner affair--which remains almost wholly unknown in the english speaking world.

In brief, the story goes like this, Malchiel Greenwald charged Kastner with collaboration in Hungary. Kastner at the behest of the Ben Gurion government sued for libel. Alas Greenwald's attorney, Shmuel Tamir staged a spirited defense and the honor of established Zionist organizations during the Holocaust was challenged. Kastner lost the libel suit, appealed, lost again. And when faced with the possibility of being convicted under Israel's anti-collaboration law (the one Eichmann was convicted under), he was convenient "assasinated."

Along the way Hecht shares many stories just beginning to be written about in english including Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl's "Europa Plan" and the death of Hanah Szenes. As well as his rather celebratory accounts of Irgun terrorists against the British in Palestine. (I use the term not in condemnation, Irgunists routinely embraced it)

There are many levels in which this book can be read. It can be appreciated as a polemic against the establishment zionism of Weizmann and Ben-Gurion. It can be read as a powerful cautionary tale against nation-states. It can be read as a despairing anguished cry over a humanity that seems hell-bent for nuclear annihilation.

The value for all people who care about the State of Israel is that this was the first--and for a long time only--comprehensive account of this defining moment in Israeli history.
To this very day, public airing of this controversy in english, is discouraged. Jim Allen sought to dramatize the story in his play PERDITION and, in 1987, was twice shut down by major Jewish organizations and was subjected to a libel action by a minor figure in a telling re-play of the original Kastner affair. The action was not sustained, a reading of the play was put on at a community center. (A full account can be found in Uri Davis's book CROSSING THE BORDER.)

On the other hand, Hecht is so close to his subject. Everything is black and white. While he celebrates Irgun actions against the British, he has nothing to say concerning actions against the Palestinians. The name Deir Yassin is never mentioned.

Likewise, by Hecht's reckoning it was the Irgun, and the Irgun only that won palestine for the jewish state. But the establishment of Israel was not just a military triumph but a diplomatic one as well. Without Weizmann cultivating the British and Ben Gurion cultivating the US, there would have been no Balfour declaration, no mandate for the establishment for a jewish state at Versailles, no US support for UN partition, and no US instantaneous recognition for Israel in 1948.

In the interest of balance, it is probably a good idea to compare his account with the relevant section in Tom Segev's THE SEVENTH MILLION. Also for a fuller account of Weissmandl activities and his charges against the established Zionist organizations see THE UNHEEDED CRY. For a scholarly, critical account of rescue efforts and charges of zionist non-cooperation one should see Yehuda Bauer's JEWS FOR SALE. Finally, one should probably look at Trotskyite Lenni Brenner's ZIONISM IN THE AGE OF DICTATORS, while strident and tendentious, there is a mass of devastating information in the book.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book of heroes, September 11, 2000

By A Customer

A mesmerizing account of the Kastner trial that becomes a harsh and bitter critique of Zionist collaboration with the Nazis. Hecht sets the historical stage, then lets the witnesses tell the chilling story in their own words. This book is near-impossible to find in public libraries. Searching in New York City some 15 years ago, I turned up a single copy in the special collections of the New York Public Library which I was permitted to read (in one sitting) in a locked room. The (unsubstantiated) rumor was that Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion had ordered the removal of the book from public libraries around the world. The New York Times review by Homer Bigart was critical, stating that "Mr. Hecht indulges in some crude distortions of history." In a letter to the Times, Hecht's widow responded that the author "wrote 'Perfidy' to defend the honor of Europe's slaughtered Jews - specifically Hungarian Jews, decoyed and then defamed - against such horrible defamation as that in Bigart's musing." Mrs. Hecht concludes: "'Perfidy' is a book of heroes, of honor for heroes, of pride and love for the Jews who were allowed to die with neither."

67 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Conspiracy of Silence, February 21, 2000

By	ESAR SHVARTZ (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews

Ben Hecht wrote this book in 1961. In the last 15 years, many historical studies have corroborated Hecht's findings: Ben Gurion and his socialist cronies, as well as most of the Jewish leaders in the U.S., did almost nothing to save the Jews of Europe in 1933 - 45; in many cases, they hindered efforts of rescue. Perfidy describes the shamful Kasztner affair where close to a million Hungarian Jews might have been saved but were betrayed in 1944. A similar pattern, however, occurred throughtout the Holocaust: The Jewish socialists in pre Israel Palestine bowed to the British who did not want any Jewish refugees in Palestine which would have offended the Arabs. The American Jewish leaders considered FDR as God. FDR, and his administration, did not want to help the Jews so everybody kept quiet and did nothing, including the Russians. The only ones who fought this conspiracy of silence were the Irgun members. Hecht dramatizes all these historical facts very well. No doubt, the Allies did not want anything to interfere with the war effort, but their excuses for not trying to save the Jews were cynical and outright anti-semetic. The war years were full of monumental rescue undertakings by the Allies such as the shipping of 40,000 British children to the U.S, and the rescue of several thousands Yuguslav partisans. In 1944, due to the Irgun's public relation campaigns and mounting political pressure, FDR was forced to create the War Refugee Board which saved about 200,000 Jews from slaughter (according to historians' estimates). Hecht did not mention it in Perfidy which does not deal with the U.S. response to the Holocaust. Although Hecht's description of the shamful betrayal of the European Jews by Ben-Gurion, Weiztman, and others has been well documented in recent years, one should not ignore the real Nazi collaborators who did not want millions of refugees on their hands: the British empire, the Middle East Arabs, and the FDR administration. Perfidy includes some prophetic insights which I fully agree with: Governments, and other human organizations, are doomed. Humanity will pay for the torture and murder of six million inocent people.