Scienceיעקב טלמון

Jacob Talmon

Jacob Talmon was an Israeli historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who coined the term "totalitarian democracy."

1916 to 1980Coining "totalitarian democracy"The Origins of Totalitarian DemocracyTheory of political messianismDebate with Arnold J. Toynbee

Born: 14 June 1916, Rypin
Died: 16 June 1980, Jerusalem
Occupation: historian of Modern Age, historian, political scientist, pedagogue
Education: London School of Economics and Political Science

Jacob Talmon was born in 1916 in Rypin

Jacob Leib Talmon was born in 1916 in Rypin, Poland, into an Orthodox Jewish family. His birth name was Jacob Leib Fleischer. His father Avraham was a businessman, and his mother was Tzipora Lichtenstein.

He studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem until 1939 and then at the Sorbonne in Paris. After the Nazis occupied Paris he moved to London. In 1943 he earned a PhD from the London School of Economics.

In 1949 he returned to Israel and began teaching at the Hebrew University, where he became professor of modern history in 1960. His 1952 book The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy traced political messianism to the French Revolution and compared Jacobinism with Stalinism. He also taught as a visiting scholar at Oxford, Princeton and MIT.

After the Six-Day War he debated Arnold J. Toynbee on the role of Jews and Zionism in history. In 1972 he wrote against holding the occupied territories, and in 1980 he sent an open letter to Prime Minister Menachem Begin urging withdrawal.

He was married to Irena Talmon, a physician, and they had 2 daughters. He died in Jerusalem in 1980 after a long illness, and Menachem Begin spoke at his funeral. A stamp in his memory was issued in 2004.