Volume 33, Number 14 · September 25, 1986
The Return of Maimonides
By Arthur Hertzberg
The headquarters of UNESCO in Paris was an improbable place at which to celebrate, in mid-December of 1985, the eight-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Maimonides. The United States had formally withdrawn from UNESCO the year before, after charging the organization with being a center of anti-Western propaganda, of support for 'guided democracy,' and, especially, of a 'third world'-style controlled press. Just a few days before the Maimonides conference was to convene, Great Britain had announced its decision to withdraw from UNESCO, for reasons almost identical to those given by the Americans. Both governments had attacked Amadou Mahtar M'Bow, the director general of UNESCO, for his third world proclivities and extravagant budgets. Several people in Paris suggested to me that he might be helped by the appearance of fairness and reasonableness that this conference would give him.
Feature, 5549 words
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