Here are my fifty shades of 'J'

Just before, ahem, Christmas, I received an email asking me to take part in the My Jewish Identity Project. You can, too. We all can.

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From nonsense to indecency

John Rentoul, the political commentator, and I have a friendly competition to find ever more outrageous examples of a genre of newspaper commentary that he calls "Questions to Which the Answer is No". This is a headline that floats a bogus and unsupported theory by posing it as a question.

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Making light of a meaty issue

In November I participated in a debate held at the London Jewish Cultural Centre and billed as "a thought-provoking and provocative evening about the relationship between Jews, meat and shechitah (ritual slaughter)". The evening was undoubtedly thought-provoking and certainly provocative.

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In search of a lady in Rangoon

Last Friday, my daughter Lily and I flew to Rangoon. We were met by our bowing, smiling driver: "My name is Bon; James Bon!" he said, laughing uproariously.

I opened my itinerary. "Tourists may be followed by plain-clothes officers for the first few days."

"Bon, this is your territory, go fast… slow down!"

"Dad! What are you doing? I'm about to be sick."

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Plan for Mirvis’s successor now

Rabbi Mirvis's appointment as the next chief rabbi has been greeted warmly by the community. He clearly has the respect of his rabbinic colleagues, the affection of his own congregation and he is popular in other synagogues, too.

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Miliband’s ill-defined integration

In a recent speech, Labour leader Ed Miliband - the son of Polish Jewish immigrants - made some important statements designed to address ongoing public concern about levels of immigration to the UK. He did so against the backdrop of data from last year's census.

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‘Safe’ choice is probably the last

As a non-member of the United Synagogue, my interest in the process by which it has chosen a new chief rabbi is naturally limited. But, as a historian of Britain’s Jewish communities, my curiosity is intense.

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Intrigue worthy of Shakespeare

Some people love politics the way others love soap opera. They follow the plots and intrigue not out of a worthy interest in this or that policy but for the sheer human spectacle. For those so inclined, I often recommend an obsessive interest in the US: the outsized egos, the extravagant characters, the perennial culture wars are all reliably gripping.

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Black hats turned upside down

While the Board of Deputies prepares to reflect on its future, while the Chief Rabbinate Trust ponders whether it can appoint a genuinely credible successor to Lord Sacks, and while the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation makes ready to resume its search for a new spiritual leader (hoping, no doubt, to do so without repeating the comprehensive hash that it made of this quest last time), a pe

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Braw bricht lichts of Chanucah

So, readers, "Happy Hannukah!" That's what it says on the strange, giant, zinc candlestick near Jack Straw's Castle in Hampstead (for our more observant customers, I ought to explain that Hampstead is a shtetl about 2,500 miles west of Jerusalem and 10 miles south-east of Radlett).

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