Saturday, July 05, 2008

I came across this line on Isiah Berlin: "It is doubtful that Israelis ever knew how disparaging he was in private about a state that he defended in public." From Michael Ignatieff, Isiah Berlin: A Life, p. 182. As you may know, Zionist leaders begged Berlin to relocate to Israel, and Israeli officials wanted him to serve the state in an official capacity. Ben-Gurion wanted him to be director-general of the Israeli foreign ministry, while Chaim Weizmann's widow selected Berlin to be her husband's official biographer. Of course, Berlin was never interested in that job, and said so in private.