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The alleged Christmas underpants bomber Abdulmatalab was formerly President of the Islamic Society at UCL. He is the fourth President of a London student Islamic society to face terrorist charges in three years.

Now Universities UK – which represents the heads of British universities – is setting up a group to tackle extremism on campus, to be chaired by UCL Provost Malcolm Grant. This is "taking the mick". First it is four years since the Parliamentary All-Party Inquiry into Antisemitism recommended this move. Why has it taken Abdulmatalab's suspected atrocity attempt to prod them into action? Second Grant, in a recent article in the Times Higher Education Supplement, suggested that only badly educated people from poor families become terrorists, thus proving that he hasn’t a clue about what motivates extremism:

What induced this behaviour remains a mystery. He [Abdulmatalab] has not emerged from a background of deprivation and poverty. He came from one of Nigeria’s wealthiest families. He was privately educated, and to a high level. He gained admission to University College London, where he studied mechanical engineering with business finance between 2005 and 2008, and was president of the UCL student Islamic Society in 2006-07.

Have you been reading Ben Macintyre in The Times re-telling, with fascinating new detail, the amazing wartime story of the successful British bluff which duped the Nazis into thinking the Allies were going to invade Greece and the Western Mediterranean rather than Sicily ? Immortalised in book and film with the title "The Man who Never Was," the story highlighted the role of then naval officer, Ewen Montagu, in preparing the corpse of a vagrant to be dropped off the coast of Gibraltar with all sorts of "clues" intended to mislead the Germans. Which it did. Not featured in The Times's account, and why should it, is that Ewen Montagu went on to become - wait for it - the President of the United Synagogue!

Ewen Montagu, who probably never ate a kosher meal in his life if he had the choice was, if I recall correctly, a nephew of Sir Robert Waley Cohen who was himself an unlikely President of the United Synagogue during the period when the Chief Rabbi was Dr Joseph Herman Hertz, celebrated as the man who never resolved a dispute peaceably if there was another way. Hertz was a small man physically, Waley Cohen something of a bear by comparison. The story is told that, on one occasion when Waley Cohen approached Hertz to embrace him, the overwhelmed chief rabbi shouted for all to hear: "Don't squeeze me!"

The unJewish Jew Montagu became, in essence, the prime spokesman for traditional United Synagogue Jewry, a role in which, with his upper class manners and mannerisms, he often seemed out of place. The still greatly missed Chaim Bermant properly described him as the last of the Cousinhood which led Anglo-Jewry from the Victorian into the new Elizabethan age. When Montagu died 25 years ago, Bermant wrote that his demise marked the "passing of a class, indeed of class, in the leadership of the community." Montagu was succeeded in the US presidency by Sir Isaac Wolfson.

Does something still linger in our genes of the biblical prohibition against making graven images? I must confess to being confused by - on the one hand - portraits of the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, which are ubiquitous in the homes and meeting places of his followers, and those frequent, alien, media shots (Brooklyn, Mea Shearim, New Square) of chasidim, hands to faces, trying to avoid the image-making ability of the camera lens. And all the wedding pics, and barmitzvahs, etc etc and mug shots of rabbis which accompany their contributions to this and other newspapers. What gives? And why do I ask the question?

Because, while we deny our philistinism and point with rosy cheeks to Jewish Book Week and the great crowds it musters, and even to our turnout for the Israel Phil (more social outing than musical appreciation?), we do not display any great enthusiasm for Jewish art. Ah, you may ask. Jewish art? Well, I think the Financial Times' wonderfully sensitive and percipient art critic, Jackie Wullschlager, said it all in her column in the weekend edition of that newspaper. She had been to see the great exhibition of Ben Uri - Jewish Art Museum gems, now at rhe Osborne Samuel gallery in Bruton Street, London, which includes the recent challenging Chagall discovery, Apocalypse in Lilac, Capriccio (1945), which earned so much attention in the national Press.

But let me quote Wullschlager: "....this show raises the whole vexed question of whether there is such a thing as Jewish art, and , in turn, whether a Jewish Museum of Art has a role in a multicultural society. For, while some of the masterpieces at Osborne Samuel...are pertinent to Jewish history...most are not obviously so,..

A few days ago, on January 5th, Anat Hoffman, the director of the Israel Religious Action Center, who spoke in our Shul last year was interrogated by the police for more than an hour about her activities during Women of the Wall's last monthly service in December. Speaking by phone from Jerusalem, Hoffman said she did nothing differently that day than she had for the 21 years of her group's existence.

But this incident follows the arrest in November of another member of the group, Nofrat Frenkel, and is contributing to a sense among the women in the organization that the Israeli authorities are stepping up their surveillance and intimidation of activities that challenge the ultra-Orthodox control of the holy site.

Hoffman said that the police told her that she was being investigated for violating a decision of the Israeli Supreme Court that prohibits women from wearing prayer shawls at the Wall. But the Women of the Wall claim to have accommodated themselves to the ruling; instead of donning the black-and-white tallitot, traditional for men, they each wear a smaller, multi-colored shawl like a scarf around the neck and under a coat, so as not to offend the strict sensibilities of other men and women at the Wall.

My old friend and colleague Gary Rosenblatt, who is editor and publisher of undoubtedly the best Jewish newspaper in the US, the New York Jewish Week, has struck a number of chords with his recall that a 60-year old report into Jewish defence agencies - like the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee - recommended a number of mergers for reasons of communal sense and communal economy. As Gary notes, nothing came of the extensive study, and it has remained a footnote of 20th-century American Jewish life. But, as he also observes, even after all this time, there is much in the report that is eerily relevant, from the charges of excessive duplication and waste, to the insistence by each of the national organisations that its work is unique and cannot be consolidated or shared, and that fundraising cannot be pooled. At this time of financial stress, does this ring any bells for you? I am not going to point the finger but, if you can get access to a current Jewish Year Book, have a little fun noting where there could be mergers which would benefit the community both organisationally and financially. And, if you wish, tell me what you find and I may return to this topic with your suggestions.

It is so bleak and miserable out there so let me share a good smile sent to me by my much-revered and endearing rabbi:
Did you hear about the dyslexic invited to a toga party who went dressed as a goat.....

When I read that IJPR were doing a survey of attitudes of British Jews towards Israel, I was delighted. Those of us committed to activism and Israel advocacy know that support for Israel runs deep (if all too often silent!) among British Jews. Witness the numbers who turned out at the demonstrations in London (over 15,000) and Manchester (2,000) almost exactly a year ago, despite bitterly cold weather and a hoax cancellation email (London) from Jewdas. Or remember the large sums donated via the ZF to buy care packages for IDF soldiers. Here at last was a survey that would give us quantitative evidence of that support and could be used in articles and debates on blogs with naysayers who insisted that support for Israel was weakening or that “We are British not Israeli so should not be the victims of antisemitism triggered by Israel’s operation in Gaza”. It would enable us to show that Anthony Lerman (ironically the previous Director of IJPR) is in a tiny minority with his belief that Israel causes antisemitism.

The results of the survey might still confirm what we already know. But the methodology (called 'self-selection') calls that into question. That is because there is no pre-filtering of respondents. One is asked to confirm that one is over 18, Jewish and resident in the UK but those who have any familiarity with antisemitism on the Internet (eg on Guardian: Comment Is Free) will know that Israel haters have no compunction about lying - especially when they can do it anonymously. The IP address reveals whether a completed questionnaire comes from the UK or abroad, but I very much doubt that Ipsos-Mori (who are doing the survey for IJPR and the Pears Foundation) will check all the IP addresses. The survey is also wide open to multiple responses. And the elderly - who perhaps do not use the Internet - are a significant omission as they remember the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 and are likely to be more Israel-minded than many younger people. (The IJPR website offers no postal option for those wishing to participate in the survey).

The survey asks some extremely sensitive questions. For example, the respondent is asked if s/he feels “My loyalties to Britain sometimes conflict with my Jewish loyalties towards Israel.” The “dual loyalty” trope is beloved of antisemites. And he is asked whether “The State of Israel is responsible if its actions provoke antisemitism in Britain or elsewhere.” The rogue respondent will answer “yes” to that one, too. And "no" to the question “do you consider yourself to be a Zionist?” You don’t need to be Bob Worcester to realise that if rogue respondents are a sizable number, the results could be skewed in an extremely problematic direction.

This also appears on Cifwatch

The Guardian website today carried a report about the clashes between the aid convoy led by George Galloway and the Egyptian police. Of course the article demonised Israel:

Israel's strict blockade of Gaza, which has been in place for more than two years, prevents all exports and limits imports to a few humanitarian items.