Robert Frost concludes his 1916 poem “Choose Something Like a Star” with slightly ironic advice. It isn’t greeting card stuff. It can’t be taken at face value. The conclusion nevertheless comes to mind under conditions like the current panic:
…when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
In this spirit we might turn to Winston Churchill. The Tikvah Fund’s Eric Cohen included this “Tikvah Classic” lecture by Andrew Roberts on Churchill in his daily email update yesterday. He wrote: “Winston Churchill—perhaps the greatest man of the 20th century—was also an early supporter of Zionism. At last year’s Conference on Jews and Conservatism, Churchill’s preeminent biographer, Andrew Roberts, explored the British Bulldog’s philo-Semitism and support for a Jewish state.”
Even if you know a lot about Churchill — even if you have read Martin Gilbert’s or Michael Makovsky’s books on Churchill and the Jews — you may learn, or relearn, something from this.
Roberts gave the speech at this past November’s Jewish Leadership Conference. It is posted here with a brief summary.
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