Hayek, on His Double Jubilee, Gets Published in Hebrew: Critic of Socialism Breaking a Taboo as Israel Wrestles With Its Roots

Hayek, on His Double Jubilee, Gets Published in Hebrew: Critic of Socialism Breaking a Taboo as Israel Wrestles With Its Roots

FORWARD STAFF

JERUSALEM -- The New York Public Library, the Times of London and the journal Foreign Affairs count free-market economist F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" among the most noteworthy books of the 20th century. It has been translated into Chinese, Danish, Dutch, German, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish -- and now, to mark what would have been Hayek's 100th birthday, Hebrew.

The Shalem Center, a Zionist think-tank based here, has published the Hebrew version of "The Road to Serfdom" and is now translating several of Hayek's other essays. The think tank's chairman is American cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder, who is also the chairman-elect of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Hayek's criticisms of socialism, and the connections he draws between socialism and the rise of Nazism, challenge the assumptions of Israel's founders and of many of its present-day inhabitants. The socialist roots of the Jewish state run deep, from the dominance of the network of labor unions known as the Histadrut to the continuation of government-controlled industry to collectivist institutions like the kibbutz. The fact...