That is precisely what agreements are for: so that hatred won't become war. - Shulamith Hareven

The question remains: aside from a great writer, or a writer-historian of Barbara Tuchman's stature, who can draw an accurate picture of the situation and not enrage those who were there? Who can highlight the distress of both sides, without betraying either one?

(HC: How do you account for this burgeoning of religious fanaticism among us Jews?) SH: Funny you should ask. I addressed myself to this dilemma in an article in a recent issue of The Jerusalem Quarterly. In brief, there are four interrelated ways in which our whole culture has gone off the rails before our very eyes: (one) in the subordination of the rule of law to the way of faith; (two) in the misguided perception of our times as "The End of Days," thereby validating excess as acceptable Jewish behavior; (three) in conferring excessive authority on rabbinic figures; and (four) in the abolition of a sense of sin-which is contrary to the spirit of the Bible. I consider all of these to be deviations from Judaism.

We write of what we know, but a large part of our local culture-not all but a large part-tends to lose its significance in transposition.