Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom, by Fredy Perlman
Published by 121 Bookshop in 1991, 16 pages. Pamphlet (N3593)
From the first page: Escape from death in a gas chamber or a Pogrom, or incarceration in a concentration camp, may give a thoughtful and capable writer, Solzhenitsyn for example, profound insights into many of the central elements of contemporary existence, but such an experience does not, in itself, make Solzhenitsyn a thinker, a writer, or even a critic of concentration camps; it does not, in itself, confer any special powers. In another person the experience might lie dormant as a potentiality, or remain forever meaningless, or it might contribute to making the person an ogre. In short, the experience is an indelible part of the individual’s past but it does not determine his future; the individual is free to choose his future; he is even free to choose to abolish his freedom, in which case he chooses in bad faith and is a Salaud (J.P. Sartre’s precise philosophical term for a person who makes such a choice)
My observations are borrowed from Sartre; I’d like to apply them, not to Solzhenitsyn, but to myself, as a specific individual, and to the American cheerleaders rooting for the State of Israel, as a specific choice.
Condition of the pamphlet is generally excellent. The cover is clean and tidy, the staple spine is intact, and all pages are clean, intact, unblemished and tightly bound.
Condition | New |