Posts Tagged ‘israel’
Please read the small print.
- ‘ANTISEMITIC’ MEANS ANTI-ARAB
This is not correct. The opposite of antisemite is not semite but philosemite. However the interpretation of antisemitism as anti-Palestinianism has great popularity as it enables the antagonist to accuse Jews of antisemitism while denying it in himself. There are also those who, as in Tiktoker Fiona Ryan’s song, ‘wear their antisemite’s badge with pride,’ but they tend to be fanatical Jew haters rather than moderately hostile.
2) JEWS ARE POLISH (OR KHAZARS)
The demography of Israel is such that Mizrahi Jews from Arabic speaking lands comprise more than half the Jewish population. As for the Beta Jews whose antecedents came from Ethiopia, there is no going back to Poland for them. The maternal grandparents of the present writer were born in Poland but they spoke Yiddish not Polish and migrated to England in the early twentieth century. If they had remained in Poland, they likely would not have survived the Shoah. Curiously, anti Zionist Jews ranging from right to left such as Neturei Karta (a minority group even among haredim), JVL or JVP are rarely considered Polish. It is perceived by the accuser as a slur, so intended for Zionist Jews and Israelis.
3) ZIONISTS COLLUDED WITH THE NAZIS
I find it difficult to print these words as they are such a grotesque misunderstanding of the Holocaust. The Nazis did not quiz Jews about their politics before selecting who would go to the gas chambers and who would be put to work. Those who looked capable of slave labour survived longer than those who did not. As for collusion, it is a word which overhadows anyone in a position of leadership in the ghettos who thought they could save more Jews from death if they provided the German occupiers with a productive workforce. There was often a terrible calculus in which saving some was weighed against saving none. Hence Rudolf Kastner and Chaim Rumkowski got accused of collaboration.
4) NON JEWS KILLED IN THE HOLOCAUST ARE FORGOTTEN
Roma, Sinti, Gays, Communists and people with disabilities were also killed by the Nazis but anti Jewish rhetoric, legislation, dispossession and murder were driving forces during the Third Reich and it is difficult to see why anyone would need to have this explained to them.
5) JEWS WERE EXPELLED FROM 109 COUNTRIES
I assume that the people who post this canard can name the 109 countries. I would expect also that they can explain why so many countries wanted to expel Poles (or Khazars).
6) ZIONISTS ARE WORSE THAN NAZIS
This is a very popular canard. The source of imminent or present danger always seems worse than other dangers. Thus I have seen people claiming that Hamas are worse than the Nazis, which is meaningless and unhelpful. The reason why such a grotesque comparison is made concerning Zionists (among whom I count myself) and Nazis is that it suggests the Nazis were in some way vindicated in their attempt to eliminate the ultimate evil. Neonazis are less bothered by Zionist/Jewish distinctions and want us all exterminated, but they do not fall within the middle-of-the-road mainstream.
7) JEWS ARE WHITE SUPREMACISTS
This applies likewise to black or Mizrahi Jews. Grist to the mill is the non Jewish perception of Chosenness and what they think Jews mean by it. I would say it refers to Jews being chosen for certain jobs in the world, in fulfilment of the 613 commandments. Saint Paul was the first to say that gentiles were under no compulsion to circumcise, keep kosher or recite the Shema twice daily. Contemporary Jews have laws and customs, culture and folklore, as do all peoples. As to whether national consciousness is supremacism, it is often suggested that this applies to English but not Scottish or Irish nationalism.
8) JEWS DOMINATE GOVERNMENTS AND MEDIA
This is difficult to insist on as so many western governments are now antagonistic to Israel while the broadcasting companies sometimes get themselves into trouble over their passionately anti Israel point of view. Yet I know this is not how it is perceived by people who want the government to desist from putting difficulties in the way of anti Israel action. They would want the government to cease all commerce and exchange of intelligence with Israel, to emphasize that Israel is an outcast among the nations. I don’t think they will achieve this as the UK needs Israel’s cooperation and they have already compromised trust by their anti Israel rhetoric and sanctions.
9) ZIONISTS ARE PRONE TO INFANTICIDE
I wondered if this belonged with a different list of principles, belonging to the fanatical far right or fanatical far left but I see it so commonly, it must have its place in the middle of the road. If we say this is malignant nonsense, we are shown images of children’s corpses, said to be Gazan, and given horrific statistics of the deaths of children, as estimated by the ‘Hamas run Health Ministry’. If we say that children are killed in all wars, they will say ‘No!’ as emphatically as Dawn French in her notorious video. It is indeed a horrible war when the military and the civilians are entwined in the over-crowded debris of Gazan cities and towns. Whether the war could have been fought differently without the devastating death toll, I do not know. All I know is that I and other Jews on social media are called ‘baby killers’ most days and I know it is a gross insult, informed by a medieval hinterland of which they may not even be aware.
10) KEIR STARMER IS/JEFFREY EPSTEIN WAS – A MOSSAD AGENT
As Naftali Bennett recently said in reply to the Epstein rumour, he wasn’t. And neither is Keir Starmer, nor his Jewish wife. We are not all Mossad agents.
*
Would that there were only ten of these commandments but I know that the popular misunderstandings, clichés and libels vastly exceed those I have mentioned. We Jews have not 10 but 613 commandments, codified by Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah (Repetition of the Torah) in the twelfth century. The Ten Commandments of Exodus 20 are called the Aseret Hadibrot – the Ten Sayings, very important but by no means the totality of the commandments.
The extremists and hysterics who suffer from a fanatical hatred of Jews have other sets of commandments, including those above but tending towards cosmic and apocalyptic perceptions of the place of Jews in the world. It would not surprise me if they had more than 613 statements which have ebbed and flowed through the ages.
The Dawn of the Actor-Activists
Posted on: June 6, 2025
Like most people in this country, the United Kingdom, I watch television and I watch films. I marvel at the ability of actors to convey, with a blink of the eye or a single word, an entire narrative of inner life. I used to think such skills must run on a motor of wisdom and intelligence, but then I heard Vanessa Redgrave ranting at the 1978 Academy Awards about ‘Zionist hoodlums’ and thought she had performed better speeches when they were penned by more profound authors than herself.
Now that it is almost mandatory for actors to express themselves forcibly against Zionists, there are further disappointments, most notably seeing the sublime Ralph Fiennes and Benedict Cumberbatch add their names to a letter signed by many of their colleagues, expressing their opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza. I can hardly blame them. They have watched and heard BBC and Sky News, informing them that Israel lures Gazan innocents with promises of food and safety to gather them together and fire on them. The broadcasters know this, or think they know it, or decide to say it, because Hamas – the Gazan Health Authority, as they like to be called – has told them so.
National treasures and less cherished public personalities find their voices against Israel, in the case of Piers Morgan to shout ‘Bullshit’ at a lawyer, Natasha Hausdorff whom he had invited on to his show, ‘Piers Morgan Uncensored.’ So many times did he stop her answering questions by bellowing ‘Bullshit’ that it seemed to be he who was doing the censoring. When viewers expressed surprise at his adamantine refusal to let his guest finish a sentence, he replied that Israel had gone too far, see above, and threw in a few more ‘bullshits’ on his X account.
Today, I find that Dawn French – unlike Piers Morgan, an actual National Treasure – has made a hideously hurtful video in which she mocks those who refer to 7 October 2023 as the reason Israel went to war. Grimacing and deploying a whiny infantile voice, she says ‘Yes but they did a bad thing to us,’ and then, by way of counterpoint, utters a deep and resonant ‘No!’ Again putting on the baby voice, she says something about history, which I suppose is meant to be us Jews talking about persecutions in our history and again, the emphatic ‘No!’ I think I understand what she wants to say. The predicament of the Gazans is so catastrophic that no rationale of the war or of the longer conflict can justify what is happening now. That is how Dawn, presumably, wants us to interpret her comic video. The faces and the silly voices she puts on to represent Israeli and Jewish perspectives – they are badly judged. Or are they? Will she find, like the band Kneecap, that the more seriously you oppose Israel, the better the audience likes it?
Yesterday, a neighbour joined me for coffee. She is a nice lady even older than me but equally as vigorous. She spoke about a nasty landlord who owned her first marital home: ‘A Jewish man,’ she said, ‘a big fat Jewish man so of course he…’ I went temporarily deaf at that point so didn’t hear her account of his machinations. We were in my flat with mezuzot on all the doorposts, a menorah on the cabinet and a Star of David visible round my neck. How could she not know? Is it possible that she did know but still thought her words would be acceptable, that it was common knowledge that Jews did this or that and I could hardly be offended? Within seconds I realized I would not say ‘Do you know that I’m Jewish?’ It would be too awkward, too much like bad manners. Our conversation continued smoothly and amicably. I thought of Kim Philby, always having to guard his reactions, and of the spy I most admire, Eli Cohen who posed as Kamel Amin Thabet among the upper echelons of the Syrian Ba’ath Party.
A spy is like an actor. The raised eyebrows, the eye rolls, the half smile can only appear in character. My neighbour’s remark was the kind of relatively mild, commonplace antisemitism which one heard occasionally before ‘anti Zionism’ became de rigueur for aspirational entertainers, academics and Members of Parliament. Now one expects to be called ‘baby killer’ every day, not by our neighbours I hope but by the online activists who have sight of our posts against antisemitism.
Why do I say ‘one’ and ‘our’ instead of ‘I’ and ‘mine’? It is because I have seen it happens to all of us. On Wednesday, Lord Ian Austin was abused and jostled by pro Palestinian demonstrators outside Parliament because he said, ‘Free the hostages.’ I can imagine Dawn French repeating ‘Free the hostages’ in the mocking, baby voice she used in her video.
Really, it is a miracle that anyone, public figure, online activist, teacher, doctor, journalist, clergy or politician dares to speak out against the Zionist-exclusionary mania for the Palestinian cause.
But we have always relied on miracles.
Tie a Yellow Ribbon
Posted on: March 21, 2025
As you know, the yellow ribbon is used as a symbol for keeping hostages or prisoners in mind, currently with reference to the hostages still held in Gaza, the living and the dead. At home, I have some yellow ribbons which were handed out at vigils I attended in London, for the hostages and in memory of those murdered on or in the wake of 7 October 2023.
I thought about tying them round trees locally, even about buying more yellow ribbons, to adorn the trees of the ‘Quieter Neighbourhood’ roads, as an Enfield Council initiative is pleased to call them. I am aware of course that these ribbons, like the photos of hostages, get torn down as soon as they go up. In the UK, those who want the hostages forgotten are more numerous than those who want them remembered. I thought also that I would not like to see a street full of Palestinian flags here in Palmers Green and perhaps the yellow ribbons would incite a game of one-upmanship, over whose symbol would last longer or be greater in quantity.
The Palestinian flag is seen more often on London streets than the Union Jack, in Ireland readier to hand than the Irish tricolore. At the Labour Party Conference in 2018, under Corbyn’s leadership, Palestinian flags were handed out to delegates so that a whole forest of them waved in the conference hall, without a red flag in sight.
On the pro Palestinian marches which takes place in UK cities on most Saturdays, the symbol of the Star of David is butchered, drawn with a swastika inside it or behind it, with blood dripping from the six pointed star or being thrown into a waste paper bin. How does the self-vaunted ‘Jewish bloc’ of perhaps twenty persons put up with it? Perhaps they tell themselves that the Magen David is not a Jewish symbol at all but represents the Israeli flag – but we know better. The six pointed star on the gravestones of my relations, in the synagogues and worn on a chain round my neck – they are not about Medinat Israel but about, a people, a faith, a history and an identity.
We have learned since 7 October, if we did not already know it, that we Jews, so often talked about, so often in the news, are a minority among minorities, perhaps 300,000 at most in this country and fifteen million, half of whom live in Israel, in the whole world. Our antagonists want us somewhere else, not here, not there, possibly not anywhere, or else gathered in Poland: Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Mizrachim, Beta Jews, Italic Jews, North Africans. What would the Poles think about it? In reality, ‘Go back to Poland’ is a curse because it is perceived as our graveyard, the epicentre of the Shoah, more than Berlin, Munich, Vienna or Budapest.
There are people who steadfastly build memorial sites for the killed and the kidnapped of 7 October. Daily, vandals kick over plants, tear down posters and remove objects related to love, pity and mourning but they are set up again, in the full knowledge that another vandal will come and the memorial be restored again after them.
The actor Jason Isaacs wears a yellow ribbon pin in solidarity with the hostages but a so-called influencer digitally erased it before posting the photo of Jason Isaacs, minus the yellow ribbon. If the Star of David gives offence and the Menorah and the scrolls of a Sefer Torah, all of them Jewish symbols, so too does the yellow ribbon, not political or religious but simply a sign that our missing people are not forgotten.
At the heart of the Yom Kippur liturgy is Yizkor, the memorial service, for which my synagogue suddenly fills up, seats at a premium, because many who are not given to religious devotions still want to remember the loved ones they have lost. Willingly, they pray for them. The yellow ribbon however signifies remembrance of the living, who may still come home. Some will want to erase it, finding it an unbearable symbol, although it is a symbol of hope. God willing, more may still come home.
From Peniel to Tel Aviv
The name first appears in Genesis 32:28, when Jacob wrestles with a celestial being.
Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֵלָ֖יו מַה־שְּׁמֶ֑ךָ וַיֹּ֖אמֶר יַעֲקֹֽב׃
Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.”
וַיֹּ֗אמֶר לֹ֤א יַעֲקֹב֙ יֵאָמֵ֥ר עוֹד֙ שִׁמְךָ֔ כִּ֖י אִם־יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־שָׂרִ֧יתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִ֛ים וְעִם־אֲנָשִׁ֖ים וַתּוּכָֽל׃
Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.”
The etymology is explained by the angel as ‘Sarita,’ you have striven. Sin resh hé, to persevere or exert oneself, contend.
The nationhood of Israel in the bible
By the beginning of Exodus, it is established that the narrative concerns B’nei Israel, the children of Jacob.
Exodus 1:1
וְאֵ֗לֶּה שְׁמוֹת֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל הַבָּאִ֖ים מִצְרָ֑יְמָה אֵ֣ת יַעֲקֹ֔ב אִ֥ישׁ וּבֵית֖וֹ בָּֽאוּ׃
These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming with his household.
בְּצֵ֣את יִ֭שְׂרָאֵל מִמִּצְרָ֑יִם בֵּ֥ית יַ֝עֲקֹ֗ב מֵעַ֥ם לֹעֵֽז׃
הָיְתָ֣ה יְהוּדָ֣ה לְקָדְשׁ֑וֹ יִ֝שְׂרָאֵ֗ל מַמְשְׁלוֹתָֽיו׃
Numbers 10:36
And when it rested, he said, “Return, O LORD, to the ten thousand thousands of Israel.”
בְנֻחֹ֖ה יֹאמַ֑ר שׁוּבָ֣ה יְהֹוָ֔ה רִֽבְב֖וֹת אַלְפֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל
Psalms, esp 114 ‘When Israel came out of Egypt.’ Israel as contrapunctual with Jacob
Avinu Malkenu
אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ הָרֵם קֶֽרֶן יִשְׂרָאֵל עַמֶּֽךָ:
Our Father, our King! raise up the might of Israel Your people.
Deuteronomy 6:4
שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה ׀ אֶחָֽד׃
Hear, O Israel. יהוה is our God, יהוה alone.
Amos 9:14
וְשַׁבְתִּי֮ אֶת־שְׁב֣וּת עַמִּ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵל֒ וּבָנ֞וּ עָרִ֤ים נְשַׁמּוֹת֙ וְיָשָׁ֔בוּ וְנָטְע֣וּ כְרָמִ֔ים וְשָׁת֖וּ אֶת־יֵינָ֑ם וְעָשׂ֣וּ גַנּ֔וֹת וְאָכְל֖וּ אֶת־פְּרִיהֶֽם׃
I will restore My people Israel.
They shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them;
They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine;
They shall till gardens and eat their fruits.
The two kingdoms
The two kingdoms were called Israel and Judah. They separated when there was a revolt among the tribes in the North against the authoritarianism of Rehoboam, son of Solomon. The kingdom was then divided, with Jeroboam as king of Israel in the north and Rehoboam as king of Judah in the South. Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained in Rehoboam’s kingdom with its centre in Jerusalem. The other ten tribes were in the northern kingdom, with its capital in Shechem, which is now known as Nablus in the West Bank. The modern name of the city can be traced back to the Roman period, when it was named Flavia Neapolis by Roman emperor Vespasian in 72 CE. Following the Muslim conquest in the 7th century, the city was given its present-day Arabic name of Nablus.
Jeroboam installed golden calves in the northern tabernacles. When you read the book of Kings, the kings in the southern kingdom were mixed, some good,some bad, but in the north nearly all were bad. The assessment of a king as good or bad depends on the extent to which he prioritises the Temple and its cult. The northern kings were therefore at a disadvantage, and Jeroboam’s altar at Bethel with its two golden calves is a symbol of corrupt kingship.
Were we called Israel in the diaspora?
Although we are called Jews in English speaking countries, in Russian and Italian, we are known as Yivrei and Ebrei (both variations of “Hebrew”), and in formal settings—such as the names of institutions—Israelite is often preferred in German, Spanish and French.
The previous siddur of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain offered six themed shabbat morning services, each with slightly different additions to the basic order of prayer, which was the same in each. Service number six was on the theme of ‘The Family of Israel’. The recommended psalm was 126, When God brought the captives to Zion,’ which is recited before Birchat Hamazon, often to the melody of Hatikvah. A biblical paragraph in the service is from 1 Kings 8:55ff where Solomon the king says ‘Blessed is God who has given rest to his people Israel, as He promised.’
The naming of Medinat Israel
Under the Persian Empire, when the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile, the land was called Yahud and under the Romans it became Judea.
Some of the Yishuv pioneers, settling in Israel in the 1880s called themselves Biluim, from a slogan whose acronym was Bilu, Beit Yaakov Lechu V’nelcha, from Isaiah: בֵּ֖ית יַעֲקֹ֑ב לְכ֥וּ וְנֵלְכָ֖ה בְּא֥וֹר יְהֹוָֽה. Another group were the Hovevei Zion, said to have founded Rishon L’Zion, meaning ‘First in Zion’.
On May 14, 1948, when David Ben-Gurion declared statehood, he said: “We hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.”
Why was it not called Judah or Zion? The locations designated by these names were outside the borders of the new state, as East Jerusalem was allocated to Jordan. In the various drafts of the declaration, the space for the name was left blank.
From Zeev Sharef, a minister in Ben Gurion’s Cabinet:
Most people had thought that the state would be called Judea (Yehuda in Hebrew). But Judea is the historical name of the area around Jerusalem, which at that time seemed the area least likely to become part of the state. Also, it applied only to a very small territory. So Judea was ruled out…“Zion” was also suggested, but Zion is the name of a hill overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem.
Again, the geographic Zion wasn’t going to be a part of the new Jewish state.
Yitzhak Gruenbaum, the chairman of the Jewish Agency Rescue Committee during the Holocaust, and the first minister of interior of Israel, made the argument for the name Judea and against Israel, and years later explained his rationale in these words:
I opposed the name Israel. It reminded me of the name israélite [in French] … instead of juif, which was considered derogatory. We Zionists embraced the derogatory “Jew,” which was the name of our people from the return from [Babylonian] exile. I favoured the revival of this name, which the masses of the [Jewish] people accepted in their spoken languages. Another name was liable to divide the state from the Diaspora.
If Judah had been chosen instead of Israel, citizens of Israel, whether Jewish or Arab, would have been Yehudim, which seems unthinkable. And we can see how the name Israel makes a distinction between Israelis and the Yehudim of the Diaspora.
Enmity in the diaspora
There can be no doubt that Israel appears throughout the liturgy, in Tanakh and in the rabbinic writings as the collective term for our nation, our religion, our people. In contemporary debate, hostile persons often assert that we who consider ourselves B’nei Israel are imposters from some region remote from the land of Israel. They tell us to go back to Khazaria or go back to Poland, although it is unlikely that this is said by anyone actually in Poland. We know from history that our long sojourn in Poland ended badly. The antagonists dislike the creation of a modern Hebrew language, sometimes considering Yiddish more acceptable. Among antisemites, the word Ashkenazi is paired with the word Zionist but their hatred for the Jewish citizens of the State of Israel means they want the elimination of Mizrachim and Sephardim and the Beta Jews of Ethiopia, along with the Ashkenazim.
From Chief Rabbi Mirvis, in The New Statesman, this week.
It is said that Chaim Weizmann, who would later become the first president of the State of Israel, was once asked by a member of the House of Lords why Jews were so fixated on one tiny, contested piece of land. Were there not other territories in which a Jewish state could be established? Weizmann responded that this would be like asking why he had driven 20 miles to visit his mother, when there were many other perfectly nice old ladies living on his street.” and that “… Today, Jews are extremely diverse politically, religiously and culturally, but remarkably are united by few things more than the centrality of Israel.
In the last year, Israel has been present for us very much in the sense of geography, current politics and war. The atrocities of 7 October struck most of us to the core because many of us have family and friends in Israel and, even if not, diaspora Jews often have a strong association with the State of Israel and engagement with it especially in time of danger. The war has ensued with Gaza and Lebanon while Israel is attacked also from Iran and Yemen and to some extent from the West Bank. It is in the eye of a storm reported every day all over the world, headlining above all other foreign news and generally the press, the UN and NGOs like Amnesty and many politicians in the west claim that Israel is conducting a brutal, expansionist war. To identify with Israel is to be called genocidal baby killer and, in some professions it is deleterious to acquire this reputation.
At the Academy Awards, Jonathan Glazer, an alumnus of JFS and director of the film ‘The Zone of Interest’ about the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, made an acceptance speech in which he said:
‘…We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization — how do we resist?’
To give him the benefit of the doubt, he probably did not intend to do harm with these words to Jews worldwide. He probably was horrified by the effectiveness of Israel’s war on Gaza and the loss of life. A different perception is that, when prominent Jews use their public platform to excoriate Israel, they are harming us all. In the case of Glazer, he encouraged Israel’s critics to use the Shoah as an attack weapon against Israel, likening the government and the defence forces to nazis, a simile which is deployed daily by the far right, for example Nick Griffin, many on the left and unfortunately more and more in the soft centre.
Yidden
In my parents’ generation it was not uncommon to use the word Yiddish more than any other to denote Jews: ‘Not many Yidden there,’ ‘He has a Yiddisher punim,’ and so on. The mamalashon was Yiddish, not Hebrew. Yiddish is still preferred by anti Zionist orthodoxy, who do not use the holy tongue for everyday speech and, by contrast, the secular anti Zionists of the left approve of Yiddish rather than Hebrew which they consider the colonialist language.
The pronunciation in our shul and in the Reform movement is a nod to the Hebrew of Israel and of Sephardim. Saying Succos and Simchas Toirah sounds mildly out of step in our minhag although many of us had to learn to pronounce tav as a T not an S and cholem vav as o rather than oi.
I might say that while the antisemites of the far right call us Yids, the antisemites of the far left call us Zios. But in point of fact, they borrow from each other so one cannot always tell one from the other. Both extremities avoid saying the name Israel, preferring ‘The Zionist Entity,’ the slangy ‘Israhell’ and print variations where, for example, the dollars sign is substituted for the S in Israel.
The nation
The phrase עם ישראל חי has become a ubiquitous slogan among diaspora Jews although I’m told that in Israel it is used mainly by the right wing parties. As עם means nation (cognate with Arabic umma) it is a declaration of the nationhood of the Jewish people.
October 2024
Foreword
Last night, a woman in the BBC Question Time audience in Cheltenham held forth, reproaching the Labour MP on the panel for what she called ‘friendship with Israel’. Gaining confidence as she heard the gathering applause, she spoke of Israel ‘targeting babies, children, hospitals and schools’. ‘Enough of this rhetoric about antisemitism,’ she proceeded, to a perceptible rise in audience sympathy, ‘if you support Palestinian babies.’
Her warning against ‘the rhetoric about being antisemitic for supporting Palestinian babies’ clearly struck a chord with the audience and I reflected that perhaps some of them had been called antisemitic or knew people who were called antisemitic and thought it was unfair and untrue. It could be said that it takes a Jew to know what is antisemitic, but then we are likely to disagree among ourselves and, mercifully I have encountered many non-Jews who understand very clearly the difference between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. If they see it so clearly, I wonder, why are others so myopic?
Dear Friends
I get the impression that people of good will are often perplexed by the term antisemitism. They don’t want it fired at them like a poison dart but are not sure if we are unreasonable, aiming it at persons you think are merely making points, about war and peace, wealth and poverty, vengeance and forgiveness. You have watched the news on BBC and Sky; read the Guardian and the Independent, heard the Pope and Gary Lineker, and you want to take up a position against Israel’s wars, but you don’t want to give offence to your Jewish friends, colleagues and, possibly, relations. You’ve been told that comments about Israel are distinct from statements about Jews but noticed that diaspora Jews seem to believe we have a horse in Israel’s race. You’ve seen that some Jews call some other Jews antisemites and thought that hardly seems reasonable. And perhaps someone told you that Jews look down on non-Jews, calling them goyim which sounds like a bad name.
Last point first: the Hebrew word goy means nation, and goyim is the plural. If you look at a biblical concordance, you’ll see that it occurs many times; 560 times, according to Google’s counting and, every time, it refers to a nation or nations, including the Israelite nation. In post biblical times, the word has been used to ‘other’ non-Jews, rather as the word ‘foreigner’ has an othering stratum, separate from its essential meaning. The far right, in our own time, refer to ‘the goyim’ intending always to say it is what we Jews call non Jews whom, they claim, we exploit and enslave. The far right are almost the only people who admit to being antisemitic, and even then, not always.
You may want to know how it happens that a Jewish person might be called an antisemite, either fairly or unfairly. Every nation has its traitors and, in this, we are no different. I would say that a Jewish antisemite is someone who not only separates themself from the community but intends harm towards the community – or identifies with people who intend to do us harm. When I was young, there was animosity between proponents of traditional, orthodox Judaism and Progressive Judaism, where women were ordained as well as men and certain laws, such as driving on Shabbat, were relaxed. Now a graver animosity is between those who care for Israel and others who suppose that they must dissociate and condemn it. Undoubtedly, this makes for very bitter hostility and draws into the argument non Jews who have strong opinions for or against Israel, an extension of the argument which probably helps to perpetuate it some of the time. This is not to deny that I’m infinitely grateful to Israel’s friends and the non-Jewish warriors against antisemitism who instinctively recognize it when they see it.
The present government of Israel has critics within the country, so numerous that demonstrations of many thousands filled the streets every week, fearing that the authority of the Supreme Court would be eroded by policies of the Netanyahu administration. Now there are demonstrations by those who think more could be done to bring the hostages home. Others believe that the government should make long term security a priority above all other issues and that the Iranian proxies can be given no quarter.
I don’t expect you to have the answers to geopolitics and wars. I understand that your hearts are moved by the suffering of children, continually depicted on our news stations as the reporters devote themselves to showing the human cost of war. In my opinion, they understate the human cost for Israelis who have suffered bombardment from Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen. Israel has invested in effective defences and shelters so the numbers of the dead are not as great as those in the countries which attacked it.
You may have heard that antisemitism does not, contrary to dictionary definitions, mean hatred of Jews but persecution of people who speak languages cognate with Hebrew, predominantly Arabic. There are some who say they are not remotely antisemitic as, although they dislike Jews, they have nothing but love and compassion for Arabs, particularly Palestinians. There is even a fad, around Christmas time, for claiming that Jesus was Palestinian as he was born in Bethlehem, now in the West Bank. This might have worked when the name ‘Palestinians’ signified Jews resident in the British Mandate of Palestine, but the implication that Jesus was an Arab is a curious rewriting of the New Testament and you may be sure that, when Easter comes around, the same people will not be arguing that Judas and Caiaphas were Palestinians.
I can see how complicated are all these matters to people who were not born knowing the word ‘antisemitism’ and I have one message in this letter which I want to convey.
After the Holocaust in the Second World War, certain terms were coined to apply to the murder of the six million, not on the battlefield, but by the intentional use of bullets, gas, starvation and scientific experimentation: such terms as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, planned by the Nazi leadership and carried out by civil servants, army personnel and grunt level workers. It has become a popular device to adapt the terminology, making us Jews the perpetrators of genocide, calling us Nazis, telling us ‘You have become what you hated’ and posting cartoons on social media showing German stormtroopers morphing into IDF soldiers or Jewish children in the deathcamps redrawn as Gazan infants.
My message to you is – don’t do this. Why would anyone want to depict us as our most bestial persecutors? It is like the delight some people take in speaking of the existence of slavery in Africa before millions were captured and shipped away in the transatlantic slave trade. If it was done to you, your enemies will want to say you do it to another.
Most days on X, someone will anathematize me as a ‘genocidal maniac’. It is simply a thing to say to a Jewish person who is deeply – or even shallowly – connected with Israel, to cause maximum pain, to give greater offence than any F word or C word can communicate – although they generally give these words a whirl alongside the rest of it.
If you really don’t want to give offence, don’t use the inaccurate shorthand of hatred but use moderate, considered language.
To those who already do so, many thanks, and to those who stand with us without being asked, a blessing on your heads.
Post script: There’s something I forgot to mention but was reminded of when I saw it in progress today.
Antagonist: Israelis all come from Poland and like killing babies and stealing land; plus they are sexual perverts.
Our guy: That’s an antisemitic generalization.
Antagonist: Antisemitism is being against Jews. I’m just against Zionists and you’re an antisemite for conflating Israel with Jews.
The fact is, most of the antagonists who post ludicrous errors about Israel do appear to be motivated by an animus which preceded Israel’s present wars. They do not understand the connection between diaspora Jews and Israel. It is an empirical connection, which they might understand better if they visited Israel or talked to more Jews. Such conversations on social media usually lead to the DARVO * moment when the antagonist calls our guy an antisemite. When the antagonist follows the template of centuries old anti Jewish discourse, but substituting ‘Zionists’ or ‘Israelis’ for ‘Jews’, the chances are that they will harm us if they can, even if we live in Stamford Hill, Salford, Golders Green or Barnet, rather than Haifa, Tel Aviv, Sderot or Jerusalem.
And it is already happening.
*DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender
Lost Knowledge
Posted on: December 9, 2024
A reliable informant (one of my daughters) told me that the 1979 television film of Jack Rosenthal’s The Knowledge was available on Youtube and that it had stood up well to the ravages of time. I found it and watched. The Knowledge refers to the qualification required of London taxi drivers, knowledge of topography and routes from any one place in London to any other. The story concerns half a dozen hopeless hopefuls, learning the Knowledge and being examined by a sardonic and bullying instructor gloriously portrayed by Nigel Hawthorne.
One of the candidates, Ted Margolis (Jonathan Lynn) from a Jewish family of cab drivers, is eager, borderline sycophantic and blessed with a retentive memory. Highly motivated, he is the first of the group to qualify as a cabbie by completing the Knowledge. When he breaks the news to his fellow candidates, they share his euphoria. They want to take him to the pub to celebrate but Ted tells them that he doesn’t drink. The worldly Gordon finds this difficult to believe and Ted says, ‘What do you want, I’m a Yiddisher boy. Cards, yes; women, certainly; drinking – one small [sounds like ‘eggnog’ but the sound isn’t quite clear] at Christmas.’
Nevertheless, they go off to the pub together and subsequently Ted loses his new green badge for being drunk in charge of a motor cycle. He is later seen applying his photographic memory to Hebrew phrases, and finally is in Tel Aviv, wearing a tembel hat and studying a road map of the city.
1979. I tried to imagine these scenes being written and screened today: Jewish references in a bitter-sweet comedy and, more than this, the fearless, unself-conscious way in which Ted reminds his friends, ‘I’m a Yiddisher boy.’ Didn’t we all do this: make humorous references to our Jewish lives to offer our non Jewish friends a bit of metaphorical chren, a spicy, tasty condiment daubed on the side of the conversation? Maybe we didn’t. In any case, who would do that now? Who would write it into their comedy?
The author of The Knowledge, Jack Rosenthal, who died twenty years ago, was married to Maureen Lipman. She was herself well loved by the public at that time and it was much later, particularly during her opposition to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, that she was vilified on Corbynist social media. It happened often to Jewish women who spoke against Corbyn, whether they were politicians or entertainers: Margaret Hodge, Maureen Lipman, Rachel Riley, Tracy Ann Oberman, Luciana Berger, Ruth Smeeth, Louise Ellman were reviled but Miriam Margolyes who was anti Israel was considered exemplary as a Jewish celebrity.
The bile against Maureen Lipman was staggering in Corbynist groups on Facebook, as you see here:
Notwithstanding being Jewish, Maureen Lipman had come close to being a National Treasure. Jews can still hold this position if they repudiate Israel, unless, like Stephen Fry, they speak out against the renaissance of antisemitism. Then they become persona non grata in certain circles.
The United Kingdom seemed one of the safest places on earth to be Jewish, for most of my life. Ted Margolis, in The Knowledge, made aliyah before it was strictly necessary.
The popularity of havoc
Posted on: October 14, 2024
In the years, the months, even the weeks after 9/11, I noticed how an anti-Americanism seemed to pervade popular consciousness, an opinion that they had it coming and that the villain of the piece was George W Bush. In a sense, 9/11 brought down Tony Blair who, until then, was not generally perceived as a lackey of the Washington administration. The global flare up of anti Jewish discourse and action since the massacres of 7 October has reminded me of this unexpected phenomenon, the lionisation of those who carry out political murder.
As if to compensate consciences for the cruelty of approving the murders, critics of the USA and of Israel express themselves in terms of compassion for the beleaguered people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza and Lebanon. In the UK and the USA, many thousands took to the streets early in 2003, to oppose the invasion of Iraq. Since 7/10, there are huge marches every other Saturday across he cities of Europe, the UK and the USA, against Israel, often stridently supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.
I do not recall Sadaam Hussein being admired, except by George Galloway; neither is the Ayatollah Khameini a role model for many, although there is certainly a degree of sympathy for the Islamic Republic of Iran in the anti Zionist clamour.
In the early 2000s, I worked in a bookshop which belonged to a well known chain of stores selling books, stationary and newspapers. By Christmas 2002, the shelves headed ‘Humour’ filled with new books satirizing the ‘special relationship’. One which I remember took the form of juvenile and misspelled letters purporting to be a correspondence between Bush and Blair, in which Tony was the acolyte of George, apparently a bigger, older boy.
Bush was known for his malapropisms and admitted ‘Sometimes I misspeak’. Small books of ‘Bushisms’ appeared, amusing verbal slip ups. ‘Misunderestimate’ was Bush’s own coinage, much mocked yet, compared to Donald Trump, Bush was indeed misunderestimated. Blair was less often the butt of jokes. His intellect and fluency meant he was portrayed by some as consciously evil, a Jaffar to Bush’s Sultan. His religiosity was held against him.
‘You don’t pray together?’ Paxman asked Blair, referring to the fact that Bush and Blair both identified as Christian believers, in the course of a hostile interview where Paxman emphasized the death of innocent civilians in Iraq. Blair, always a master of self control, was clearly irritated by the question, which he answered with a negative. What was behind the question? Was it that the western leaders used Christianity as a justification for wars against Muslim peoples; that they used it to indicate probity as a cover for warmongering; that they were crusaders? What put it into Paxman’s head to ask the question? It was likely already in popular discourse.
Any reproach against Blair and Bush has been magnified a thousandfold against Netanyahu since 7 October and he is often seen as encapsulating the people of Israel more than Bush was regarded as representing Americans, or Blair as representing British people. In the mix is the lightly somnolent virus of antisemitism, now fully awake and wanting breakfast. Opponents of Israel’s wars think they have not the slightest hostility to Jews but that Israel’s wars are monstrous and that Zionists the world over are the cause of all ills, even the vagaries of severe weather. The language born out of the Nuremberg trials, of war crimes and genocide, is applied to Israel so feverishly that, if one is not called a genocidal maniac, one feels the interlocutor is pulling their punches.
On the marches, they chant: ‘Yemen, Yemen, make us proud; turn another ship around,’ ‘All Zionists are racists,’ ‘We don’t want no two state, we want 1948,’ ‘Khaybar,Khaybar ya Yahud,’ all chanted to – so to speak – the same tune.
Daily on X, formerly Twitter, I see people calling for the extermination of Jews while speaking compassionately of Palestinian suffering. The horror lies in the fact that they are not all the usual suspects, the neonazi right wing, but come also from the left and, still more disturbingly, the centre.
The question is this: if Israel had gone to war without the trigger of the 7 October pogroms, would the hatred be any greater? If America had made war on Iraq without the impetus of 9/11, would the vilification have been the same?
If Guy Fawkes had not been discovered in the cellars of Parliament and if King James and his government had been sent to kingdom come, would children still have said ‘Penny for the Guy’ and put Fawkes’s effigy on bonfires, almost to the present day?
A month after 9/11, I heard schoolboys chanting ‘Osama bin Laden’ on the streets of Edmonton in North London. They were expressing approval – of what? The glamour of terrorism? The win of wreaking havoc?
I could not say. I do not know.
Neviim Tovim, blogs by Gillian Gould Lazarus 