Description:
The Five is an captivating novel of the decadent fin-de-siècle written by Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), a controversial leader in the Zionist movement whose literary talents, until now, have largely gone unrecognized by Western readers.
Brief description:
Michael Stanislawski is Nathan J. Miller Professor of Jewish History at Columbia University.
Review Quotes:
For Jabotinsky, Arab national aspirations, like those of the Zionists, were legitimate. Hence his acknowledgment of the inevitable violence of the struggle.... In Jabotinsky's future, Arab and Jew would not be neighbors so much as carefully differentiated groupings within the body politic of the new state.... In Jabotinsky's writing, Zionism both affirms and doubts itself. What would Israel look like today if the modern leaders who have claimed to take their inspiration from him--Begin, Netanyahu, Sharon, and now Olmert, who referred to Jabotinsky in his speech to the first session of the new Knesset at the beginning of May--had shown themselves capable of such radical self-questioning.
--Jacqueline Rose "The Nation"