This banker baiting worries me

Let me try something out on you. It may turn out you don't feel as I do. But I have a hunch that more of you will share my uneasiness than won't. It's about Fred Goodwin. In fact, it's about the whole banker thing.

We Jews may be more likely to perceive that the BBC is biased against Israel but, on common-or-garden political issues, we feel pretty much like our non-Jewish neighbours.

More..

A new dawn for the Federation

I was born into the bosom of the Federation of Synagogues, and have grown up under its beneficent eye. My maternal grand- and great-grandparents were among its founders (or at least the founders of shtibls that formed themselves into a federation more than a century ago).

More..

Not just a problem for South Park

When I was researching You Can't Read This Book, my study of censorship, an old joke came back to me. "You can be a famous poisoner or a successful poisoner but you can't be both".

Successful censorship is hidden. A writer who concentrates on the famous cases misses the point. Censorship everyone knows about is not successful precisely because everyone knows.

More..

School in need of history lesson

Parrs Wood High School is a "specialist technology college" in the south Manchester suburb of Didsbury. It is by all accounts a popular school, with a current roll of almost 2,000 pupils. Its Ofsted reports tell of a school that has had problems in the past (in 2007, it was placed under "special measures") and still faces challenges.

More..

Israel's real Charedi revolution

Is Israel really in danger of being overrun by Charedi religious extremists?

It certainly feels like it.

More..

Feeble reasons not to boycott

Earlier this month, the Board of Deputies declined to adopt a resolution urging "all those who oppose antisemitism to refrain from buying the Guardian or advertising in it".

More..

Charedi bus battle will motor on

So much has been spoken and written about the goings-on in Bet Shemesh, and more generally about their ramifications for the wider issue of the relationship between Israel's Charedim and the rest of Israeli society- and indeed between Charedim and the rest of the Jewish people - that you might think nothing more remains to be said. I believe, however, that there is more to say.

More..

Good to talk? Useful, anyway

First, I should declare an interest. I am a friend and admirer of Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, leader of Britain's Masorti movement. But I also like and admire the JC's political editor, Martin Bright.

More..

'Zionist' has become a dirty word

The other day, on other pages, I took a blast at the more unlikely supporters of Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul. I wrote what was true, that Paul was part of an extreme isolationist and anti-government tendency on the US right, and one that had flirted extensively with folk possessing dodgy views on questions such as race.

Among the more hostile responses was a common theme.

More..

Unbalanced forms of balance

I have some sympathy with Rabbi Danny Rich, chief executive of Liberal Judaism, who has found himself at the receiving end of communal opprobrium following his decision to participate in a sixth-form study day at the Gryphon Church of England school, chaired by the Bishop of Sherborne, Graham Kings.

The event was focused on Israel and Palestine.

More..

Riots reveal cracks in society

When it comes to shooting itself in the foot and other essential bits, Israel undoubtedly takes the all-time prize.

For the past few weeks, Israel has been convulsed by how women are treated by fanatics in the strictly Orthodox community. Women are being segregated on buses serving Charedi neighbourhoods.

More..

How not to choose our leaders

I've said it before. I'll say it again. The Jewish communities of the UK are run by some of the best brains in the land: captains of industry; giants of commerce; leading lights of the learned professions; men and women who are at the tops of their respective trees.

More..

Hitchens got it wrong on Israel

It doesn't seem all that long ago that, at a Jewish Book Week event, I met Christopher Hitchens. We parted with him saying that we should get to know each other better. But we never did. He went home to the United States and before we could meet up, he fell ill. I will always regret it. Friends of mine, who knew him well, attest that he was great company.

More..

When background is a barrier

I have just finished updating my history of Hackney Downs school, first published 40 years ago. Founded by the Grocers' Company in 1876 it was, in its heyday, one of the finest boys' secondary schools in the land. In 1995, dubbed by the tabloids as the "worst" school in England, it was shut down.

More..

Europe's Jews need this union

There's one number you won't find in the torrent of opinion polls unleashed by David Cameron's European summit veto.

More..

Are US's leaders fit for offce?

Last week the United Synagogue made a particularly nasty attack on this newspaper. I have read more or less every edition of every Anglo-Jewish broadsheet since the beginning of time. But I have never before read an attack of such viciousness on any such newspaper, and I would never have expected such a mindset to be projected from within the portals of the US.

More..

Tis not our season to be jolly

An Open Letter to Lord Sacks of Aldgate
Dear Jonathan

I feel compelled to write to you, both as a Jew and as a Jewish husband and father, to express to you the deep unease that I felt on reading press reports of your homily delivered at the Scottish Parliament at the end of last month.

I refer in particular to certain declarations that you reportedly made during the course of your re

More..

The future of Hebron's Jewish past

Until recently, I had never been to Hebron. In the past three months, however, I have twice boarded an armoured bus to make the journey. The first time was with a private, non-political group to visit Hebron's Jewish area and the Cave of Machpelah, where Abraham and the patriarchs and matriarchs are said to be buried.

It was a shock.

More..

Let us play Jewish guessing game

Last week, I was privileged to give a public address in Tredegar in south Wales as part of the commemorations there of the anti-Jewish riots that swept through the Western Valleys in August 1911. The audience was composed almost entirely of non-Jews.

More..

Conspiracy of nonsense on Libya

I had just finished reading a book by the sociologist Duncan Watts when I heard over the weekend that Saif Gaddafi, the son of the former Libyan leader, had been captured and arrested. The book was called Everything Is Obvious When You Know the Answer.

More..