Sobering read, Kyle. I'm always inspired by the quality of your work.
There's actually a full-length biography of Levison by a prominent reformed rabbi named Ben Kamin, who would go on to be defrocked after a sexual harrassment scandal, and who died not long afterwards. It's quite the revealing work. In many ways I presume unintentionally by Kamin. I really can't imagine how anybody with any knowledge of espionage would see Levison's "defection" as sincere, even before the Garrow Standpoint piece. He set off more red flags than Philip and Elizabeth Jennings.
King being even more radical, though not something I picked up on till reading your piece, does make a lot of sense. He was from early on drawn away from his father's hard-nosed fundamentalism and towards Christian liliberalism and socialism, but he never came close to the Hegelian synthesis he searched for. Because the synthesynthesis of Christianity and revolutionary socialism doesn't exist. Either thou shall, or shalt not, steal. Either thou shall, or shalt not, covet that which is of thy neighbors. Either thee shall honor thy father and mother, or abolish the family in the name of equality. There's no clinal solution to be found. Nor has anyone else succeeded with such a search. The only option is to abandon one or the other.
A thorough historical revision of the era really is pressing. The airbrushed portrait we were presented with our whole lives till now simply doesn't hold up, and pretending it does has shredded the integrity of the nation.
Sobering read, Kyle. I'm always inspired by the quality of your work.
There's actually a full-length biography of Levison by a prominent reformed rabbi named Ben Kamin, who would go on to be defrocked after a sexual harrassment scandal, and who died not long afterwards. It's quite the revealing work. In many ways I presume unintentionally by Kamin. I really can't imagine how anybody with any knowledge of espionage would see Levison's "defection" as sincere, even before the Garrow Standpoint piece. He set off more red flags than Philip and Elizabeth Jennings.
King being even more radical, though not something I picked up on till reading your piece, does make a lot of sense. He was from early on drawn away from his father's hard-nosed fundamentalism and towards Christian liliberalism and socialism, but he never came close to the Hegelian synthesis he searched for. Because the synthesynthesis of Christianity and revolutionary socialism doesn't exist. Either thou shall, or shalt not, steal. Either thou shall, or shalt not, covet that which is of thy neighbors. Either thee shall honor thy father and mother, or abolish the family in the name of equality. There's no clinal solution to be found. Nor has anyone else succeeded with such a search. The only option is to abandon one or the other.
A thorough historical revision of the era really is pressing. The airbrushed portrait we were presented with our whole lives till now simply doesn't hold up, and pretending it does has shredded the integrity of the nation.