A Tale of Two Cities

Jerusalem and Athens

Observations from Churchill that make for interesting reading 50 years down the road.

The Greeks rival the Jews in being the most politically-minded race in the world.  No matter how forlorn their circumstances or how grave the peril to their country, they are always divided into many parties, with many leaders who fight among themselves with desperate vigour.  It has been well said that wherever there are three Jews it will be found that there are two Prime Ministers and one leader of the Opposition.

The same is true of this other famous ancient race, whose stormy and endless struggle for life stretches back to the fountain springs of human thought.  No two races have set such a mark upon the world.  Bot have shown a capacity for survival, in spirit of unending perils and sufferings from external oppressors, matched only by their own ceaseless feuds, quarrels, and convulsions. . . .

No two cities have  counted more with mankind than Athens and Jerusalem.  Their messages in religion, philosophy, and art have been the main guiding lights of modern faith and culture.  Centuries of foreign rule and indescribable, endless oppression leave them still living, active communities and forces in the modern world, quarrelling among themselves with insatiable vivacity.  Personally I have always been on the side of both, and believed in their invincible power to survive internal strife and the world tides threatening their extinction.  [Winston Churchill, The Second World War.  (London: The Reprint Society, 1954).  Vol. V:  Closing the Ring, p. 413.]