Appendix: For the Benefit of My Son

Summary

I always thought it might be embarrassing. He said he was doing it, and I thought: He oughtn't to, and he‘ll probably write a lot of nonsense, and might write anything. I’ve never read a single line.

Isaiah Berlin talking to Michael Ignatieff in 1989

The manuscript of Mendel Berlin's autobiographical memoir, of which the following text is a transcription, is sometimes very hard to read, and contains numerous personal names that are spelt sometimes inconsistently, occasionally eccentrically. East European Jews characteristically used a mixture of Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian names, with a range of diminutives in each language, so that establishing standard forms of their names is virtually impossible. Where Mendel Berlin consistently uses the same form, I have not changed it. Where his practice varies, I have standardised it, choosing the usual form, or the one that fits most naturally into the context of Isaiah Berlin's own practice. Otherwise only minor changes, mostly to punctuation and spelling, have been made in the interests of readability: more intrusive editing would have watered down the distinctive atmosphere of Mendel's prose.

Reference to the family trees on pages 316–19 may aid identification of the relatives Mendel Berlin describes. The trees include most of the family members referred to by Mendel, as well as other relatives not specifically mentioned by him.

The subheadings and notes are editorial. In the notes IB = Isaiah Berlin, MB = Mendel Berlin. Several of the notes derive from annotations made by IB on a transcript I provided him with late in his life.

Since I have no Hebrew or Yiddish, I have depended entirely on those whose know these languages for the transcription, transliteration, translation and interpretation of matter written in the Hebrew alphabet (used for both languages). Mendel's Hebrew is transliterated according to current modern Hebrew pronunciation; his Yiddish is transliterated according to the YIVO system. Yiddish is identified as such in the notes; other Jewish terminology can be assumed to be in Hebrew. I am extremely grateful to Gennady Estraikh, to the late Ofra Perlmutter, to Joseph Sherman and to Norman Solomon for generous expert help in preparing this document for publication. I am also very much in debt to Jennifer Holmes for her work on the family trees, and for timely help in the last stages of editing the memoir.