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Isaiah Berlin: "If you tell me that Israel will become an ordinary nation, that is a tremendous step forward."
Sir Isaiah Berlin lives the genteel life of a retired don at his estate near Oxford, where he established his reputation as one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century. Set in a rambling garden, Headington House, with its sitting room full of antiques and objets d'art ,is a reflection of the cultured elegance of Sir Isaiah and Lady Irene Berlin.
The charming 81[hy]year[hy]old Berlin is a lover of music and still travels to Salzburg and the other major European festivals. His animated conversation is peppered with anecdotes of a lifetime spent in the company of great thinkers.
Born in Riga, Latvia, Berlin came to England at the age of 11. He studied and then taught philosophy at Oxford. In 1938, he became the first Jew to be named a fellow of All Souls College.
He was honored for his work at the British Embassy in Washington during World War II and in 1957, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
His major works, including "Karl Marx," "Vico and Herder," "Historical Inevitability" and "Russian Thinkers," analyze the political and social philosophies of Marxism, nationalism and liberalism. Throughout, Berlin insists on the primacy of the individual in the face of the abstract Hegelian systems of the nineteenth century.
Berlin is vitally Jewish and a committed Zionist. In a rare interview, he spoke candidly with The Jerusalem Report's associate literary editor Rochelle Furstenberg, about Jewishness, politics and history.
TJR: How do you explain the revolutions that are happening today in Eastern Europe?
BERLIN: That I can't tell you. Causal explanations in history are very seldom convincing. Stephen Spender said to me, "What would you most like to see in your lifetime?" And I said, "The collapse of the totalitarian system in Russia and Eastern Europe." To which another friend added, "So would I. But it will not happen in our time."
Ex post facto you can produce all kinds of explanations. But if you would have known before what you know now, you would never have believed it.
TJR: Nevertheless, as someone who has analyzed Marxism, why do you feel it failed?
IB : It fell for...