Imagine a growing Israeli startup whose product is deepfake videos that are based on artificial intelligence and appear to be utterly authentic. The company’s marketing efforts, according to its website, are conducted by two departments — “consulting for corporations” and “consulting for governments and politicians.” In addition, “the company helps its customers uncover their opponents’ weak spots and make them go viral.” Finally, imagine that the company describes its employees as “highly experienced men and women, graduates of elite units of the IDF intelligence branch and Israeli government intelligence agencies,” and that its technology is based on developments by these same security agencies. When you are done imagining this, it’s time to think about the private intelligence firm Black Cube.

Veterans of the Jewish Resistance in France participated in the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews during WWII. They provided emissaries from the Land of Israel with vital infrastructure for clandestine Zionist activities in France, including money, manpower, forged documents, accommodation, and contacts among the French authorities. In July-August 1947, they were significantly involved in the dramatic story of the Exodus 1947, the ship full of Holocaust survivors turned back by the British. It is regrettable that their contribution to the creation of the State of Israel is almost entirely absent from the collective memory.

This volume of the Weizmann Letters covers a period of two years and nine months, from the 13th Zionist Congress at Carlsbad in August 1923 until Chaim Weizmann’s departure from London for a visit to Palestine in March 1926. These were years of reorientation in the history of Zionism, with its center of gravity shifting from the political sphere to the task of construction in Palestine. The transition was bound to involve difficulties for the movement, for political work, with its immediate challenges, would naturally be more appealing than the practical work in Palestine, which was gradualist, and only bore fruit after a considerable lapse of time.