The Legacy

The Legacy, a first novel by the bold British journalist Melanie Phillips, is a page-turner involving layering mysteries. The mysteries interweave through time to the present day, in a story set in England, America, and Israel.But The Legacy is more importantly a novel of ideas. My novels, too, are novels of ideas, with characters that care about today's culture, about moral choice, about faith and family, about the survival of the free world.There are far too few novelists brave enough today to write novels of ideas and write them well. Such courage means ostracism by the mainstream (read leftist) media, for such novels encourage thoughtful debate. They ask questions and search for answers, which is not appreciated by the left. I applaud Ms. Phillips' honesty and courage.In The Legacy, the central idea behind the characters and plot is the question of Jewish identity, not only in the history of persecution and dispersion, but Jewish political positioning in media and politics with regard to Israel and British antisemitism.The main character, Russell Woolfe, is a TV producer who has absorbed without thinking leftist propaganda. He shuns his Jewish family in his desire to be part of modern culture. We enter his world as he faces the death of his father, and with this death he must face the death of his own history, the legacy of the Jewish people.I have often wondered why many Jewish liberals are anti-Israel, the only western democracy in the region and a vital ally to our own Judeo-Christian foundations. I am perplexed as to why many of these unliberal liberals discourage and intimidate free speech on college campuses, and why they shun the voice of religion in the public square. It makes little sense that they enforce the tyranny of political correctness in the arts – in publishing, news media, and movies. These are trends that can only hurt the Jewish people, and all of us.I found some answers in Andrew Klavan's memoir, The Great Good Thing, in which he recounts his conversion to Christianity. He explains the nature of his Jewish upbringing in America. His immigrant parents desired to become Americans, to merge into the culture, and to lose, in time, their Jewishness, become "secular Jews." To them, this was the way to succeed and, above all, survive. This was the way to calm the fears of deportation, that knock on the door in the night. And so the next generation denied their religious roots and their roots as a people, a chosen people of God. They wanted to meld into the great American melting pot.As I read Ms. Phillips' novel, I could see some of these themes emerge. Russell Woolfe has followed a similar path, separating himself from his family and his legacy. But slowly events unfold (involving a physical legacy) that shock him into the truth of his identity.What are the roots of antisemitism? One root is envy. History tells us that the Christian bans on "usury" (loans at interest) by the medieval world opened the field of banking and finance to Jews. Through the years, Jews became wealthy and powerful. Wealth and power attract envy and hatred. Antisemitism surges, fueled by avarice. The chosen people of God learned to survive, with God's help.In our own time, the West seems to be committing suicide. As the crucible of freedom and individual rights, of equality under the law, of government by the people for the people, the Western world must survive. The hordes, having been stopped at Vienna on September 11, 1683, are once again at the gates of the West, most significantly in their attack on another September 11 (no coincidence). And like a Greek tragedy, hidden in the Trojan horse of liberal blindness, they are within our gates, owning our literature. And so we destroy ourselves with our own self-hatred. Our children have not been taught our legacy of freedom. Our schools malign and shame our history.Russell Woolfe's journey through these pages opens his eyes. Is he too late? The left, made up of many talented Jewish writers and producers, must take their blinders off, if democracy, and all that it means, is to survive this onslaught from within and without.Kudos, Ms. Phillips! You have told the truth in journalism, and now you have told the truth in a novel of ideas. Thank you for your contribution to our legacy of freedom.

You would expect a great speaker, writer, and thinker like Melanie Phillips to be able to imagine and compose a great novel, and you would of course be right. The Legacy is a highly intelligent, emotionally stirring, and thoroughly entertaining tale well told.As also might be expected from a veteran professional print journalist with decades of relevant life and story-telling experiences to draw from, the writing in Legacy is as clear as an oversized and emboldened font, and the action moves as crisply as a parade of graduating military cadets. Throughout Legacy Phillips’ words are extremely well chosen, consistently painting vivid pictures of scenes and characters. Indeed, at times you can fairly smell the places and characters being described!Very briefly, the book’s main character Russell Wolfe is a middle-aged, English TV journalist beset by numerous common financial and personal difficulties, including a painful divorce, the recent loss of an estranged parent, an emotionally disturbed teen-aged daughter, and an uncertain professional future. Wolfe is suddenly presented with a unique opportunity to resolve most of these nagging problems when a mysterious, elderly stranger requests that he translate a priceless literary relic, a memoir written in archaic French by a young, 12th Century Jew living in York, England. Wolfe’s translating work provides readers of Legacy with a tragic and horrible story from a cruel and distant century weaved into another tragic and horrible story set in the cruel and tumultuous century just passed (neat trick!). Wolfe’s demanding translating work and several other emotionally jarring, concurrent experiences cause him to reevaluate his generally negative opinions of his parents and their parents, and his ethnicity generally. Wolfe’s long-held, condescending attitudes toward his family, his race, and Israelis in particular are discovered, one after another, to be based almost entirely on caricatures, stereotypes, and pernicious falsehoods. When new evidence and stubborn facts begin to expose his ill-considered ideas for the canards they are Wolfe discovers a treasure even more valuable than the priceless memoir he has been translating: the legacy of a people, i.e., HIS beautiful and perennially despised people.There is one defect of note in this otherwise diverting and edifying read. No attempt is made to distinguish between genuine Christians and the nominal variety, i.e., the Kingdom-vandalizing identity thieves who have always comprised the overwhelming majority of those who self-identify as “Christian,” and who are the principle antagonists in Legacy. Like their Jewish Master and the Jews who wrote almost all of their scriptures, GENUINE Christians would never dream of plundering and massacring anyone, much less the people their scriptures explicitly call God’s chosen people (Gen. 12:1-3; Deut. 7:6) . Alas, readers of Legacy who are not familiar with the NT or genuine Christians seem likely to come away believing that Christianity is every bit as virulently anti-Semitic as Islam, if not more so. This is most unfortunate, especially as this defect could have easily been fixed with the addition of one more character: a genuine Christian. Such a character might have usefully observed than an anti-Semitic Muslim is keeping faith with the bloodthirsty founder of his religion and its hateful scriptures, while an anti-Semitic “Christian” bears no resemblance to Jesus Christ, and is entirely out of step with his teachings and the authors of the NT.Phillips’ error of omission notwithstanding, The Legacy is an outstanding literary effort, and well rewards readers who accompany Russell Wolfe on a suspenseful hunt for his immortal soul.

The Legacy is an important novel that deserves to be widely read. The author who is a gifted social commentator has presented some facts and ideas that challenged me and drew me into thinking about the hatred faced by Jewish people for millenia.

A great essay on the decline of the West. Everyone who cares about the future for themselves, their children and grandchildren should read it.

I’ve always been interested in Judaism and have spent a month in Jerusalem as a Christian ‘pilgrim’, so primarily I came to this book hoping it would give me some idea of what it is to be Jewish in modern Britain. Well, the book did that, and much, much more.The ‘sub plot’ which is the story of Eliachim of York personalised the horror of the genocide of English Jews in medieval times, in particular, the Jews of York, but alongside that is the uncomfortable parallel of Jewish persecution in Poland by both Soviets and Nazis.But the novel’s real story is one of identity and a man’s struggle to come to terms with his Jewish heritage in face of the criticism and cynicism of our modern liberal ‘tolerant’ society.Curiously, I felt that the novel spoke to me of my own journey of realisation that my evangelical Christian faith is fast becoming as unacceptable and demonised as Judaism has been.The novel also reveals truths about modern Israeli society that the liberal press choose not to report.This is a novel I need to read again, perhaps in a year or so, as it undoubtedly throws up questions about religious and ideological identity which need constant pondering.

I have long admired Melanie Phillip's journalism. She talks a lot of sense and demonstrates the weaknesses of the left so called-liberal mindset. She is of course understandably preoccupied with the situation of Israel and cogently presents an alternative view from that which prevails in much of the main stream media.Her novel 'The Legacy' is worth reading – at least once. It is not a great novel, but it is a good one. There is suspense as the narrative of Eliachim of York is subtly interspersed with the point of view narrative of the protagonist, Russell Woollfe, a man who is in denial about his Jewish heritage. His character development is handled competently, if not brilliantly. There are a number of plot twists to maintain interest, mainly revolving about the Pole, Joe Kuchinsky, whom Russell meets at his (Russells's) father's commemorative service in the synagogue. There is a modicum of love interest which left me wanting a little more to balance some of the darkness which the two stories inhabit.I knew where the Eliachim story was heading, and I confess I omitted reading the last section of Eliachim's narrative because I knew it would be too harrowing. However that story deserves to be better known, as does the story of wartime Poland, upon which Phillips sheds light. My guess is that her book will not be welcomed in modern Poland, as it says things that it is illegal to say.I found less than wholly convincing the main plot device of a mediaeval French manuscript written in the Hebrew alphabet. The existence of such a document is credible, but Phillips has to invite suspension of disbelief that someone like Woollfe, without a background of either Hebrew or Middle French would be able to make such light work of it. I do not recall that Joe Kuchinsky's presence in that synagogue at that time is satisfactorily explained, but I may have missed something.I would have welcomed a glossary of Hebrew and Yiddish terms: not all Phillips' sympathisers, let alone her readers, will share her cultural background.What The Legacy says in fictional form about Judaism, Israel and anti-semitism is much the same as Phillips says directly in her journalistic writing, and it is a message that greatly deserves to be heard, since you will not find it on the BBC or in most newspapers.

A good journalist (which Melanie Philipps certainly is)does not necessarily make a good novelist, but she has managed to come off with an excellent piece of fiction. Her observations of human characteristics and behaviour, are sharp as a tack.I found the plot flowed easily and the play between medieval past and contemporary Britain and Israel really worked. The protagonist and his daughter were likeable characters and I cared about what happened to them. This novel is a page-turner - I read it in two days and skipped some essential tasks to finish it, so eager was I to reach the denouement.AS another reviewer says, The Legacy is a good though not a great novel but I would happily read any other fiction that Melanie Philipps produces in the future, as I'm an admirer of her incisive writing style and her considerable intellect. I also loved the richness of the Jewish culture she so skillfully evokes, and the fact that she doesn't sanctify her Jewish characters - it's warts-and-all. I loved the description of the Sabbath celebration in the Rabbi's house, full of colour and sensuality, forthright conversation and fun. She also introduces hard facts about the present situation in Israel and the political complexity that is so often lost in media reports - which tend to be very disparaging of the Israeli state, if not downright antagonistic. Melanie is not afraid to tackle the inner conflicts faced by 'liberal' Jews who tend not to identify with their fellow Jews in the Israeli state and are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. However this is not a political novel, it's the journey of discovery by one man towards his true identity and I found it very satisfying to follow his story arc.All in all, a great read.