Lady Esther Gilbert speaks at the Calgary JCC Jewish Book Festival

by Irena Karshenbaum

(AJNews) – Speaking at the Calgary JCC Jewish Book Festival on December 1, Lady Esther Gilbert recounted how when her husband, Sir Martin Gilbert, passed away in February of 2015, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote about the late historian’s contributions to Jewish history as being, “The voice of Jewish memory in our time.”

It was a fitting tribute to a man who is regarded as one of the leading historians of our time having written 88 books and who was the official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill, Britain’s great World War II Prime Minister.

Since her husband’s passing, Lady Gilbert has relocated to southern Alberta from London, England and made it her life’s mission to promote her late husband’s work. She presented a talk at the Jewish Book Festival, “Mapmaker, Mapmaker Make Me a Map: Jewish History through the Atlases of Sir Martin Gilbert.”

Lady Gilbert — as is the proper way to address the wife of a knight who himself is addressed by his first name, Sir Martin — explained that for her husband, “History was deeply connected to geography.” She recounted how, as a young man, her husband wanted to study geography, but his teachers told him, “It wasn’t a proper study. So he went into history. But for him geography was intimately connected to whatever historical events occurred and is a way for us to visualize and understand the history that much better.”

She explained that the atlas idea began while teaching at Oxford, “He would draw on the blackboard the maps of whatever area he was discussing. He said that when he came to class the next time, the blackboard was full of mathematical equations, or whatever the previous professor had taught. One of his students suggested he draw the maps on paper. Eventually these papers became an atlas.”

The first atlas was published in 1966 and currently nine are in print.

Lady Gilbert’s presentation focused on three: The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and The Routledge Atlas of Jewish History. 

She began by explaining the process, “He would decide what story he wanted each map to tell, draw it on tracing paper, which he taped over a map at the scale he needed, and then send the tracing paper to his cartographer who would create the maps. Then there would be a lot of back and forth corrections, as Martin knew the geography so well, and in most cases had been to the places or at least the vicinity that he was drawing.”

She continued, “The “stories” he told through the maps came from his research or his travels, an idea he thought of along the way, a story suggested by someone, or the natural chronological progression of events in an area.”

Lady Gilbert’s talk was illustrated by Sir Martin’s maps showing Jewish migration in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

Particularly prescient post-October 7, Lady Gilbert described finding in, Israel, A History, her husband writing the reasons behind Yitzhak Rabin signing the 1993 The Oslo Accords with U.S. President Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat. “Rabin knew that Arafat and the PLO were the last vestige of secular Palestinian nationalism with which Israel could deal. The PLO was then at its lowest ebb, he explained at the time to a confidant. On the West Bank and in Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad were pressing for more radical fundamentalist and essentially violent solutions, and this extremism was swiftly winning over the allegiance of the inhabitants. Rabin knew that if they were to succeed, if the conflict was to be theologized, there never would be peace. For, to theological conflicts, there are no compromises, and therefore no solutions. Hence the handshake, and hence Rabin’s resolve to strengthen the PLO arm of Palestinian nationalism as a partner for peace.”

Lady Gilbert also recounted the story of how her husband became the official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill while teaching at Oxford and at the same time working as a researcher for Randolph Churchill, “Randolph was writing his father Winston Churchill’s biography, and had a team of researchers travelling the country combing personal archives for information and combing through the Churchill papers.” She explained that when Randolph died in 1968, her husband was asked to complete Randolph’s unfinished biography, which he did, spending the next twenty years writing six additional volumes.

Lady Gilbert concluded her talk by quoting her husband’s essay in I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl (2005), edited by the journalist’s parents, Judea and Ruth Pearl.

Being one of the 150 contributors to the collection, Sir Martin wrote, “When I graduated from Oxford University in 1960, I decided to explore Jewish history in depth even though I had to devote so much time to working on the Churchill biography. Today, in my writing and lecturing, I find that the themes of Jewish history combine the wide-ranging facts of creativity and courage, and of resistance and renewal, with a deep spiritual continuity. To be Jewish is to be part of a remarkable, vibrant, and life-enhancing tradition that goes back to biblical times, and has never faded or failed.”

The idea for the event originated with the Jewish Historical Society of Southern Alberta as a result of an oral history interview with Lady Gilbert that was conducted earlier in 2024 by this author and transcribed by volunteers, Mel Ksienski and Laura Shuler, and which will be held in the Oral History collection of the historical society. The event was in partnership with JHSSA and the Calgary JCC.

 Irena Karshenbaum is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter who writes in Calgary. She can be contacted at irenakarshenbaum.com