4 March 2018
The New York Review of Books: Hearing Poland’s Ghosts
What had almost entirely vanished from collective memory was the fact that before World War II, Jewish and non-Jewish communities had coexisted in Poland for ten centuries, in a relationship that included phases of tension and benign indifference, of spiritual separateness and mutually advantageous commerce, of ideological anti-Semitism and what might be called multiculturalism avant la lettre. For several of those centuries, Poland had the largest Jewish population of any country in the world as well as proportionately the largest Jewish minority, with highly elaborate forms of communal life and institutions of learning central to Ashkenazi Jews everywhere. [...]
For all its attempts at completeness, the museum has drawn criticism, ranging from the charge that it doesn’t sufficiently honor the “righteous” Poles to accusations that it underplays anti-Semitism in various periods; from the contention that the exhibition underestimates the place of religion in Jewish life to suggesting, conversely, that it gives too much importance to piety. Perfect balance in presenting such a long and multidimensional history is difficult to attain, but the wide spectrum of objections may be an indirect tribute to the museum’s efforts to do so impartially. Whatever one’s reservations, it is hard to come away from the exhibition without understanding that Jews were a vital part of Polish life for centuries. [...]
The museum itself, topped by a red-framed, leaning glass tower, is almost sculptural in effect, with the huge exhibition located deep underground. The intention of the museum’s founders was clear from the outset: to show the war in its global dimensions and to emphasize the suffering of civilians, who, in contrast to previous conflicts, numerically bore the war’s greatest losses. But it was also, Machcewicz has written, “to insert the experiences of Poland and east-central Europe into Europe’s and the world’s historical memory.”
LSE Blog: Uncovering the profound effects that pension and health care reforms have had in post-crisis Greece
In a recent study, I examine the content of the reform measures in the pension and health sectors in Greece in the post-crisis period in terms of their content and their future impact on the architecture of both systems. While the Troika has been associated with severe retrenchment, it is also true that both the pension and health systems were faced with significant sustainability, adequacy and modernisation challenges well before the crisis and the advent of the Troika. In relation to financial sustainability, the European Commission’s projections published in 2009 showing a doubling of expenditure between 2007 and 2060 were already a cause for alarm, even though this was ignored by the conservative government of that period. [...]
Significant retrenchment has therefore been a core feature of the fiscal consolidation effort and one which has attracted popular attention. In the pension sector, the introduction of significant cuts has led to an estimated reduction of pension benefits for current pensioners of close to 50 per cent in certain cases. Pension benefits for future pensioners are equally expected to be half the amount of current ones as a result of new mechanisms for the calculation of benefits. In the health sector, significant cuts and cost-containment has taken precedence over other concerns regarding the quality of services or ensuring universal access. [...]
Overall, the reforms have led to the gradual erosion of the public character of both systems and a shift towards residualism, a process with profound effects on the future character of the Greek welfare state. While this shift to residualism seems to confirm the popular belief that associates the advent of the Troika with the imposition of austerity, recent evidence from the Irish case shows a different picture, with the national government being allowed more room for manoeuvre. The Irish experience raises questions regarding the extent to which the Greek government could have pursued a different strategy, taking into consideration not only financial sustainability concerns, but also those associated with (among others) adequacy and efficiency.
Quartz: China is beating back traffic in its most congested cities
In recent years, China has worked to cut pollution by reducing congestion on its city roads, measured by the number of hours drivers spend in rush hour traffic (the hours between 7am-9am and 5pm-7pm).
In spite of rising populations, its efforts appear to be working. Quartz analyzed the change in congestion levels of China’s largest cities from 2016 to 2017 using data from Alibaba-owned software company AutoNavi’s annual traffic report. More than half of the top 30 most-congested cities in 2016 saw a decline in the time drivers spent in rush hour traffic one year later. The cities with the worst congestion problems saw the greatest declines. In Hangzhou and Shenzhen, traffic declined 12.5% and 9%, respectively, even when population grew by 3% and 5%, respectively. [...]
China’s success in fighting urban traffic is due to several factors. According to AutoNavi’s report, license plate restrictions, the rapid growth of bike sharing, and the use of data in city planning have all helped alleviate traffic. Strategies to restrict population growth could also have played a role in lowering the number of cars on roads.
Haaretz: First Royal Visit to Israel Is Sign of Britain’s Diminished Status in the World
What a difference 11 years makes. At the time, Ehud Olmert was Israel’s prime minister and he was deep in negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on a comprehensive peace agreement. Nevertheless, the policy of Britain’s government remained that an official visit by a senior member of the royal family would take place only after any such agreement had been reached.
Fast-forward to 2018. Benjamin Netanyahu is prime minister, the diplomatic process with the Palestinians has been stagnant for years and never seemed more bogged down in intractable mud. Yet on Thursday morning, Kensington Palace announced that the second-in-line to the throne, Prince William, will be visiting Israel (as well as the Palestinian territories and Jordan) this summer. And you can bet that Netanyahu will be doing everything to use the visit to burnish Israel’s (and his) international image. Assuming he’s still in office, of course. [...]
The relationship between Israel and the United Kingdom is currently slanted in Israel’s favor. Britain relies on Israel for intelligence on terror threats emanating from the Middle East much more than Israel needs the U.K.’s assistance. [...]
The end of the unofficial royal boycott of Israel (Prince Charles visited Israel in “a private capacity” to attend the funerals of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres; and his father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, visited his mother’s grave on Mount Zion, likewise privately), allied with the imminent arrival of a “senior royal” on an official visit, is also a sign of shifting power in Whitehall.
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