Shake Heaven & Earth: Peter Bergson and the Struggle to Rescue the Jews of Europe [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Louis Rapoport (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1999 | ISBN-10: 965229182X | ISBN-13: 978-9652291820 | Edition: illustrated edition

This is the story of a unique and crucial chapter of Jewish history that has until now been kept in the closet. This book is an attempt to shed light on Peter Bergson as a man of courage and vision who stood against the tide of passivity at the most desperate moment in Jewish history in two thousand years.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Louis Rapoport has left us a touching, passionate and well-documented account of the little-known efforts of Hillel Kook, a.k.a. Peter Bergson, and his small band of allies to save the Jews of the Holocaust at a time when the American government and the American Jewish establishment too often closed their eyes. -- Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, The Washington Post

About the Author

A writer and editor for the Jerusalem Post, Louis Rapoport has authored 6 books on Jewish topics ranging from the Ethiopian exodus to the Intifadah. His books include The Lost Jews (Stein and Day Publishers) and Redemption Song (Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich), both dealing with the exodus of Ethiopian Jewry to Israel. He also wrote Confrontations, Israeli Life in the Year of the Uprising (Quinlan Press); Stalin's War Against the Jews (The Free Press) and co-authored Anatoly and Avital Shcharansky, The Journey Home (Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich). A loving husband and father of four, Louis Rapoport died in 1991. Shake Heaven and Earth is his legacy.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Gefen Publishing House, Ltd; illustrated edition edition (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 965229182X
• ISBN-13: 978-9652291820
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,260,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tribute to an unsung hero, May 17, 2000

By 

esar shvartz - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shake Heaven & Earth: Peter Bergson and the Struggle to Rescue the Jews of Europe (Hardcover)

The holocaust was a historical event beyond comprehension, not only because it was the largest planned genocide in recorded history. After reading the historical studies dealing with the holocaust, one must arrive at a very disturbing, pessimistic, and hopeless conclusion about humanity: If the whole world actively participated with the Nazis in the execution of the "final solution" for the Jews, the Nazis could not have done a better jon than what they did. The main event that stopped the extermination of the Jews was the military victory over Germany and its allies (Hungary, Rumania, etc). But this was a byproduct of the war, not a mission. With few exceptions (one such exception is the topic of SHAKE HEAVEN AND HELL), Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union not only refused to consider any plan to save the doomed Jews, but they did their best to hinder efforts of rescue. This included not only the leaders of the Allies during the war such as Franklin Roosevelt and the State Department, Winston Churchill and the Foreign Office, and the Soviet leaders, but also most of the Zionist-socialist Jewish leaders in the U.S. such as Stephen wise and Nahum Goldman. Louis Rapoport made a major contribution in SHAKE HEAVEN AND HELL, which is a tribute to an unsung hero, Hiller Kook (alias Peter Bergson). With a small band of young Palestinian Jews (loosely affiliated with the Irgun) Bergson managed to enlist the support of wide segments of the American public to put pressure on Roosevelt to do something about the Nazi massacres. This included congressmen, senators, various organizations, writers, and others. Some of the above individuals were household names in the 1940's such as Ben Hecht, Guy Gillette, Randolph Hearst, LaGuardia, Herbert Hoover, and Will Rogers Jr. Their public relations campaigns finally pair off in early 1944 (too little, too late) with the creation of the War Refugee Board which has been credited with the saving of approximately 200,000 Jews from the German ovens. Much of the above activities of Bergson and his group have been described in several books, such as David Wyman's THE ABANDONMENT OF THE JEWS, and in David Morrison's HEROES, UNTIHEROES AND THE HOLOCAUST. The unique contribution of Rapoport is that SHAKE HEAVEN AND HELL presents a chronological account of Peter Bergson activities, and the humiliations that he and his friends had to endure, mainly from the "recognized" Jewish leaders of the time such as Stephen Wise, Nahum Goldman, and Abba Silver. These individuals, in cohorts with Chaim Weizmann, Ben Gurion, Moshe shertok and other fanatical labor Zionists did everything they could to discredit Bergson and his activities due to their timidity and ghetto mentality. During the darkest period in human history, when most of the world collaborated in the torture and murder of six million innocent people, Peter Bergson and those who helped him should stand out as reminders that leaders and governments are not to be trusted. Unfortunately, this has not happened yet, and Rapoport laments on the overwhelming acceptance of Roosevelt, Wise, Weizmann, and others as historical heroes, while the historical research has shown that they were Nazi collaborators. We can add to this list Ben Gurion, shertok, Golda Meyerson, and their heirs. It is disheartening that despite more than half a century of major revelations about the holocaust, such as the Kastner Affair in the l950's (see Ben Hecht's PERFIDY), Eichmann's trial in 1960, and numerous books exposing the labor Zionists and their supporters' shameful betrayal of the European Jews, they are still considered as respected leaders. Roosevelt has been worshiped as a God, and Ben Gurion's heirs have been elected as leaders of Israel for almost 40 years, leading this country to one disaster after another. The six million murdered Jews did not simply end up as fertilizers in German fields. they are ghosts who will exact their revenge on man, as long as he persists in worshipping leaders and governments who have always turned against him in times of need.