Book reviews: Jews and Words | Jewels and Jackboots

Jews and Words

by Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger

(Yale, £18.99)

Rating: * * * *

Speech defines homo loquens and the love of language is a human universal, but for certain cultures it’s clearly had a special place. The Romans prized its ability (in Cicero’s words) “to prove, to please and to persuade”; the Celtic bards its more poetic possibilities; for other peoples it’s served as a well of wisdom, a medium of magic, a fund of folklore and humour. For the Jews, this exhilarating essay argues, it’s been all these things and more. “Ours is not a bloodline but a textline,” the Israeli novelist and his historian daughter suggest, reminding us that their ancestors always saw (male) education not just as a desirable end but a religious duty. From Talmudic law through Midrash proverb all the way down to the talkativeness of the outsider, trying to “bridge insular ‘otherness’ with the mainland of humanity”, the Jewish way has always been a way with words. Through the scriptural tradition, words transcended time (and, the authors remind today’s ultra-orthodox extremists) gave women a voice. More than this, they placed self-criticism and the questioning of authority at the heart of Jewish life.

Jewels and Jackboots

by John Nettles

(Channel Islands, £25)

Rating; * * * *

Germany’s possession of the Channel Islands during the Second World War has been widely sanitised – seen as being almost fun; a Dad’s Army invasion followed by an Ealing Comedy occupation. That this new history has been written by a TV star doesn’t help, perhaps (nor, for that matter, does the breezy style). Yet Nettles’ book, illustrated with contemporary documents and photos, is a serious – and finally shocking – study. St Helier wasn’t Stalingrad; Alderney was no El Alamein; but the sufferings of the islanders were very real. Britain designated the islands as “de-militarised” – without informing the Germans, who gave them the full blitzkrieg. Once occupied, the Islands’ elite seemed to take to totalitarianism as to the manner born, energetically tracking down saboteurs and transporting Jews. The post-war settlement? The scapegoating of some ill-advised teenage girls and knighthoods for the Quislings to provide a nice sense of closure. What better than an establishment cover-up to reassure everyone that the islands were back to business-as-usual, British-style?