The Herzog-Toynbee Debate asked whether Israel needs to justify its existence. It examined what standards of morality the country should be held to. It even probed whether Jews today are a vibrant continuation of a people rooted in antiquity.
The debate was held 55 years ago but feels as vital now as it was then. On Jan. 31, 1961, Yaacov Herzog faced off against Arnold Toynbee at the B’nai B’rith Hillel House in Montreal.
Toynbee, then 71, a professor at the London School of Economics, had been invited to deliver a lecture at McGill University several days earlier. During his remarks, Toynbee questioned the right of the Jewish People to have a state and drew a moral comparison between the Israeli treatment of Palestinians and the Nazi treatment of the Jews. In his earlier writing, Toynbee had also characterized the Jews as a “fossil” civilization.
After Toynbee’s controversial remarks hit the media, Israeli …