Perfidy [Hardcover]

Ben Hecht (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0964688638 | ISBN-13: 978-0964688636 | Publication Date: January 1, 1997

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: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #189,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

90 of 97 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 review is from: Perfidy (Hardcover)

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.

46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

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

By A Customer

This review is from: Perfidy (Hardcover)

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."

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sad classic...., January 15, 2000

By 

steve (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perfidy (Hardcover)

Describing a historic tragedy of monumental proportion, Hecht takes the reader on a graphic tour of the hell that was the holocaust, and unmasks many shameless opportunists as it unfolds. We meet the REAL Weizman, Ben-Gurion,and company. We see firsthand the evil indifference of Stephen Wise and his self-hating ilk. But we also meet those rare specimens of indomitability, such as Hanna Sennesh and Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel. The extreme heights and depths to which human beings can soar or plunge under duress are all part of this incredible story. The book can be difficult to read at times, for the stark horrors and unbelievable cruelty it describes. Truth, however, is the best teacher, and if holocaust studies are to ever be taken seriously, this book should be a mandatory inclusion in any such course taught.