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The National Interest
A Man of Faith
by Paul Hollander
. . . If he is anything, Hobsbawm has been and remains an orthodox man of faith seeking a new Jerusalem—his words of choice, not mine. As is the case with all orthodox religion, the devotion to a belief is praiseworthy the more improbable the belief is, not the less. Had Hobsbawm not rejected the religious heritage of his birth, it is as certain as such a thing can be that he might have been not a Reform or an assimilated Jew, but an Orthodox one. The fulfilment he has found in Party camaraderie and mass demonstrations he may have found studying Talmud in a yeshiva and in communal worship. As it happened, Hobsbawm elected to reject most vigorously the other religion, the one into whose heritage he was born. Since one cannot believe in two demanding religions simultaneously, special effort must be made to put distance between the accepted creed and the renounced one. It is ironic and sad that a man who devoted much of his life and work to support, directly or indirectly, some of the most inhumane and mendacious political systems and movements of modern times is capable of such self-satisfaction at the end of his long life. Such is life, however, and human nature. . . .