Without our schools, we are doomed

Last week our Jewish day schools celebrated yet another outstanding set of results, and we should be immensely proud of them. Anyone who is anxious about the Jewish future should visit our schools. There they will see a quiet miracle: the West's oldest faith becoming young again on the faces and in the minds of our children. That is where the Jewish future is being written, and it is a strong, knowledgeable and committed future.

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Why does Israel make it so hard to visit Eilat?

Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat is not, it seems, nearly as popular with the Anglo-Jewish market as it once was. Statistics from Israel's Ministry of Tourism reveal that the number of British visitors has plummeted from a high of 45,000 in 1997 to a low of 5,000 in 2003 - recovering to just 6,000 last year.

So why are we no longer flocking to Israel's south to soak up the winter-round sunshine, luxuriate in its world-class hotels, snorkel round the coral reef, take desert tours or generally chill out - all just five hours' flying time from London?

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Give our rabbis more authority

The flip-flopping over who can eulogise at funerals is part of a power struggle within the United Synagogue.

Goldberg the gangster has breathed his last and is about to be laid to rest. The local rabbi has gone out of town, his children are estranged, so at the funeral, the sexton asks: "Since it is the custom to say a few words in memory of the deceased, would anyone like to give the eulogy?"

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We don’t murder... right?

There is a distinct element of déjà vu in the complaints in a British newspaper about the way the
Israeli press has been handling the disappearance of a four-year-old girl, 13 months after Madeleine McCann went missing. But the tone of the coverage of the alleged murder of Rose Pizem - intensified over the last week by the news that Alon Yehuda and Mikhail Kruchkov, both also four, were drowned by their mothers in two separate incidents, five days apart - is very different.

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Palin will repel Jewish voters

A journalist friend phoned me up last weekend to announce the breaking news that Republican presidential candidate John McCain had chosen his running mate.

He listed her attributes in telegraphic style. Female, 44, pro-choice, mother to five children - including, he added in hushed tones, a baby with Down's syndrome whom she had chosen to have.

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Why does Israel make it so hard to visit Eilat?

The number of British visitors to Israel's south has plummeted. No wonder: where are the regular direct flights? 

Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat is not, it seems, nearly as popular with the Anglo-Jewish market as it once was. Statistics from Israel's Ministry of Tourism reveal that the number of British visitors has plummeted from a high of 45,000 in 1997 to a low of 5,000 in 2003 - recovering to just 6,000 last year.

More..

Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: Without our schools, we are doomed

 As faith schools face a new challenge, the Chief Rabbi argues that ours are essential

Last week our Jewish day schools celebrated yet another outstanding set of results, and we should be immensely proud of them. Anyone who is anxious about the Jewish future should visit our schools. There they will see a quiet miracle: the West's oldest faith becoming young again on the faces and in the minds of our children. That is where the Jewish future is being written, and it is a strong, knowledgeable and committed future.

More..

Switzerland’s frum Fawlty Towers

n a Friday night in August, the shul in the Edelweiss Hotel in St Moritz is packed with black-clad men swaying to the Shabbat service.

An overflow of some 20 men sit in the adjacent lounge which doubles as the women's section, at that hour still devoid of female presence. All of a sudden, a bony elderly man wearing a dark suit and homburg bursts in, shouting in a mixture of Yiddish and Shwitzerdeutsch, the local dialect.

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‘We are a formidable force’

Campus antisemitism has been brought to the attention of government with the aid of improved reporting and recording resources.

Reports across the world tell of record levels of antisemitic attacks and challenging environments for Jewish students. They also warn of no-go zones on certain campuses.

In 2007 there were over 59 recorded incidents here, a handful of which were assaults. Yet antisemitism, and its expression on campuses, is more complex than these findings suggest, and the picture for students in Britain is more positive.

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Kosher food is about ethics, not just rules

A series of scandals at America's largest kosher meat plant raises profound questions for us all.

Ten years ago, I published a book called Kosher Sex. Many were confused by the title. Surely kosher was something that pertained to food, not sex? I had to explain that kosher is an overarching term in Judaism that connotes a certain ethical fitness. When we say something is kosher, we mean that it is not just proper but conforms to an elevated morality and holiness.

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