Winston Pickett's blog



“The Left, the Jews and Israel”

By Winston Pickett, June 25, 2012

This is the subtitle of a new book by historian Robert Wistrich (University of Nebraska Press). As a stand-alone, its apparent neutrality gives little away, reminding me of T.S. Elliot’s Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The topic appears cool and analytical, ‘like a patient, etherised upon a table.'

Until, that is, you look at the full title: From Ambivalence to Betrayal.

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Antisemitism & Its Antidotes (5)

By Winston Pickett, June 14, 2012

How do you define a problem with antisemitism that seems to reside in the hazy domain of intellectual subtlety, inferred meaning and suppositions of ill will – so much so that engaging with it threatens to tie even the most experienced brains into knots?

Welcome to the “Great GSCE Religion Question Controversy of 2012.”

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Antisemitism & Its Antidotes (4)

By Winston Pickett, June 8, 2012

If talking about antisemitism – and by that I mean discussing or engaging with it as a subject in verbal or written form – poses challenges all its own, certainly one of them is conceptual.

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Antisemitism & Its Antidotes (3)

By Winston Pickett, May 31, 2012

Part of the joy that comes with investigation and research is the intellectual ride. You’ve got your topic. You may even have a working hypothesis to test. You prepare your field of inquiry and formulate your questions.

If it’s a newspaper story, you line up your interviews. If it’s a research paper, you fire up your search engine.

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Antisemitism & Its Antidotes (2)

By Winston Pickett, May 21, 2012

Teaching can be the ultimate instructor. It is where your most basic assumptions are challenged, amplified – or both.

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Antisemitism & Its Antidotes

By Winston Pickett, May 10, 2012

Tonight I begin teaching an eight-week course called “Antisemitism and its Antidotes: From Talk to Action” as a part of a Limmud-inspired, cross-communal study programme in Brighton and Hove called Lishmah Sussex.

I’ve chosen the title for two key reasons, both based on observations I have made over the years.

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Rejecting Extremes: Doing the Right Thing?

By Winston Pickett, March 3, 2011

Much as even the casual tracker of antisemitic ‘bimbo eruptions’ could be forgiven for not being able to keep up with the latest Jew-baiting outbursts from high-profile personas, the events of the past week has been downright dizzying their its global array of hate-filled invective.

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New CST Report: The Depth of Antisemitism

By Winston Pickett, February 10, 2011

When it comes to media reporting, the news that broke last week with the publication of
Antisemitic Incidents Report 2010 offered a complex and disturbing picture.

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Is it time to forge legal interventions against antisemitism?

By Winston Pickett, January 31, 2011

By Winston Pickett

This is an expanded version of the op ed that ran on p. 24 of the JC of 28 January 2011

Reports about antisemitism in the UK are reminiscent of a certain vertigo that used to throw Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign into a state of heightened anticipation. Betsy Wright, Clinton's acerbic advisor and veteran lobbyist, dubbed it waiting for the next 'bimbo eruption.'

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Heads up: Tonight on BBC’s Panorama

By Winston Pickett, November 22, 2010

Saudi-backed Muslim schools in UK teach sectarianism, extremism, homophobia and anti-Semitism

Veteran reporter John Ware reporting for the BBC’s flagship investigative programme, Panorama will reveal tonight that more than 40 Saudi-funded Muslim schools and clubs in the UK are teaching the official Saudi national curriculum to about 5,000 pupils.

The programme, British Schools, Islamic Rules, airs tonight on BBC One at 20.30 GMT.

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