“I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans.” The Great Gatsby I’d like to go back to another Max Gerlach conundrum. On Max’s 1942 World War II Draft Registration Card, Gerlach…
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“God damn the continent of Europe”. F. Scott Fitzgerald letter to Edmund Wilson, Hotel Cecil, July 1921.
A ‘violent’ xenophobic letter written by the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, to his friend Edmund Wilson from the Hotel Cecil in London in July 1921 has been a constant source of embarrassment to his biographers. “The negroid streak creeps northward to defile the Nordic Race,” he writes. How much does the letter tells us about…
The Shining Ending, July 4 1921. The Shining, Isolationism and the American Dream
The ending of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining has chilled and intrigued movie-goers for years. In the closing scene of the film the camera moves from Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance sitting upright, dead in the snow, to a gallery of pictures in the ballroom of the Overlook Hotel. On one of the pictures is Jack in…
Designs on Gatsby: Max Gerlach, Francis Cugat and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Max von Gerlach, an associate of author F. Scott Fitzgerald, made regular trips to Havana. At one time, Havana was also the home of Francis Cugat, the Spanish-Cuban artist who designed the famous dust-jacket for Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby. Here we explore the remarkable life of Cugat and the very faintest possibility that…
I Had a Dream – The Mysterious Death of Father Gapon
A detailed look at Father Georgy Gapon, the Russian Orthodox priest who led the Bloody Sunday Revolution in 1905 and who was brutally murdered in March 1906. This essay explores the various responses to his death and the role it may have played in the development of Russia’s Zionist and Revolutionary movements. At two o’…
Storms of a Russian Spring — Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky, Maxim Gorky and Pinchas Rutenberg
Benzion Netanyahu, father of Binyamin Netanyahu served as chief aide and secretary to Ukrainian defence organizer, Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky, the leader of the rightwing Revisionist breed of Zionism, precursor to the now-ruling Likud party. This essay explores the role played by the 1905 Revolution in the creation of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. The energetic…
The Massels of Manchester and New York
Just how Alexis Sheftel found himself among the revolutionary exiles in London remains something of a mystery, but it’s possible that his dedication to the printing business may have had its roots in Ukraine, the country of his birth. One of the most active presses in Sheftel’s hometown of Kiev and Berdichev was the ‘Sheftel…
Leon Goldman, Iskra and the Spark That Lit a Massacre
The socialist revolutionary, Leon Isaakovich Goldman, arrived in Kishinev (modern-day Chișinău) in May 1901, approximately two years before the infamous Kishinev Massacre, a murderous attack on Jews that was every bit as savage as the pogrom of October 7. Leon’s arrival in the town followed a secret trip to Munich, where he had met and…
I am the Resurrection. The Death of Max Gerlach and the Birth of an American Hero
How Max Gerlach became associated with Arnold Rothstein isn’t clear. There is an eight-year period in Max’s life, starting 1912, when his exact location and activities are the subject of much speculation. This becomes clear in the report put together by Agent Harry W. Grunewald in the summer of 1917. After serving with the Atlantic…
A New Race of Man — How Trotsky’s Dream of a Soviet Superman Helped Perfect the American Dream
This essay explores the interplay between F. Scott Fitzgerald’s vision in The Great Gatsby and the revolutionary ideals of Leon Trotsky, tracing influences from Shelley and Nietzsche through Soviet and American eugenics, cosmism, and utopianism. It examines the concept of a ‘New Race of Man’—a blend of idealism, social reform, and scientific aspiration—shaping both the…