Judy's Laundry Basket
excerpt from In Search of Churchill
Martin Gilbert
1971, Martin, just back in Oxford from a visit to Gallipoli to research Churchill's time there for Volume III of the biography, writes:
Shortly after my return to Britain, with the image of the Dardanelles still vivid in my mind I received a visitor.She was a tall, attractive, amusing and voluble woman, who had written to me out of the blue, introducing herself as a friend of Randolph's and a cousin of Clementine's. Her name was Judy Montagu. I took her out to dinner at one of my favourite Oxford restaurants, the Sorbonne, its dining-room somewhat dark and romantic, as befitted its reputation. Judy, as she asked me to call her, had brought with her, somewhat surprisingly, a laundry basket. I assumed that it contained her over-night clothes (she had booked into the Randolph Hotel). Hardly had we sat down however, and before the waiter could take our order, she bent down and opened the laundry basket, bringing up to the table a folder full of letters.
The letters were handwritten, in an elegant hand that I recognised at once as Asquith's. They had been written to her mother, Venetia Stanley,Read More ...................
In March, Hillsdale College in Michigan announced they had acquired Sir Martin's library and archive. As the above excerpt shows, Martin spoke with anyone who had known Churchill, worked with him, worked for him, even those who worked against him. Martin also went through their archives, and took notes from interviews – he told me he learned to transcribe phrases and conversations unobtrusively under the table so as not to interrupt the discussion. He also developed a vast correspondence with them, and so many others.
It was a method Martin continued with whatever area interested him. Martin told me that Bill Deakin, Martin's mentor and Warden at St Antony's College in Oxford, who had been Churchill's literary advisor, told him that while going through the Churchill papers (15 tons in all), Martin was bound to find things of interest. Knowing Martin, Deakin knew that there would be interest beyond what Martin needed at that particular moment, things he might like to write about at another time. Deakin advised Martin to make note of what interested him. And he did.
Some of the hundreds of boxfiles of Sir Martin's archive
Read Gilbert
The Israeli Elections 2019
On April 9, Israelis will go to the polls in what could be a momentous election. As this map shows,the numbers and needs of Arabs who are citizens of Israel, though a minority, must be taken into consideration
in a democratic state.
“Many Jews have criticized him for not speaking out forcefully enough against the Nazi atrocities. However, a more nuanced view has taken shape over the last two decades or so, with the late British Jewish historian Sir Martin Gilbert being one of the proponents of the argument that he did much behind the scenes to try and hide Jews in Church properties in Rome and Italy.”
“Despite all the words written about Churchill, in discussion with Wallace and encouraged by Martin Gilbert, Jonathan felt he had found something that had not been studied:Churchill's religious beliefs and practices.”
“Authors and teachers often treat the word Ishmael as a kind of code for Islam or Muslims.Examples of book titles which reflect this are … Martin Gilbert'sIn Ishmael's House, a history of the Jews under Islam ….”
Alton Telegraph, thetelegraph.com, Alton, Illinois, “After 100 years, Mussolini's fascist party is a reminder of the fragility of freedom”, posted 12 March 2019:
“As outlined by historian Martin Gilbert, the Italian and German experiments with fascism offer urgent lessons for our own day.”
“In the years after 1948, more than 850,000 Jews were ejected from Middle Eastern lands – lands that their communities had often lived in for centuries, in some cases millennia. As the late Martin Gilbert recounted in his 2010 book, In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands, their property was usually seized or destroyed.They faced torture, years of imprisonment, and murder.And entire civilization, rich in culture and history, was forcibly and violently uprooted.”
A new course on offer: Turning Points in Jewish History
Previous Events
March 11
The Centre sponsored a book at Jewish Book Week, Pogrom, The Tilt of History, by Steven Zipperstein, who had met Martin when Steven was at Oxford.
March 5
James Loeffler, Professor of Jewish History, University of Virginia, spoke on his research into Jews and Human Rights.
One of our upcoming projects is to have an exhibit of Sir Martin's postcards highlighting the (ancient?) practice of writing, stamping, and mailing post cards.
We are currently collecting information on what might be available, so if you were fortunate to be on Sir Martin's postcard list, please let me know the time and place he sent them from, and your connection to him.
