After working clandestinely in Paris to facilitate Jewish migration to Palestine, he emigrated to Israel in 1951. As he told the story, he was first shocked by Ariel Sharon’s raid into Jordan in 1953 that ended in a massacre in the village of Qibia; later, while serving in the Israeli army in the 1956 war with Egypt, Lewin concluded that his original Zionist ideals diverged too greatly from the actuality of the state of Israel. He turned to scholarship, first at Tel Aviv University, where he received his BA in 1961, and then at the Sorbonne, where he completed the doctoral thesis under Roger Portal that became his first book: La Paysannerie et le pouvoir soviétique: 1928–1930 (1966).
Nope, I was wrong. Was not aware he was in the army in 56 for Sinai. There's no cite for it though but I think a personal friend probably wrote that obituary so I'd assume it's true.
I also found a quote hobsbawm delivered for his funeral from this obituary : "Since I am unable to come to his funeral, let me, as an old friend and constant admirer of Moshe Lewin, drop a metaphorical handful of earth on his grave from afar. Nobody has made fewer concessions to the intellectual fashions of the times. He recognized the absurdity of Russia even at its darkest moments, and nobody made better jokes about it. They were signs of an indestructible hope. Nobody has taught me more about understanding the USSR and post-Soviet Russia than he. I will miss the insight, the endless curiosity and the moral independence of this man. Farewell, Moshe"
Is this not accurate?
Nope, I was wrong. Was not aware he was in the army in 56 for Sinai. There's no cite for it though but I think a personal friend probably wrote that obituary so I'd assume it's true.
I also found a quote hobsbawm delivered for his funeral from this obituary : "Since I am unable to come to his funeral, let me, as an old friend and constant admirer of Moshe Lewin, drop a metaphorical handful of earth on his grave from afar. Nobody has made fewer concessions to the intellectual fashions of the times. He recognized the absurdity of Russia even at its darkest moments, and nobody made better jokes about it. They were signs of an indestructible hope. Nobody has taught me more about understanding the USSR and post-Soviet Russia than he. I will miss the insight, the endless curiosity and the moral independence of this man. Farewell, Moshe"