Heard the one about the war?

Almost as quickly as it had begun, Operation Pillar of Defence wrapped up last week, leaving Israel's citizens to figure out what had just happened.

While the processing is never easy, it is especially difficult for immigrants who didn't grow up preparing for the army or living the Israeli narrative.

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Save me from my 'saviours' — and the ignorant and insane

"Chas, we can save you!' When I received messages on my blog making this thrilling promise, I assumed they were spam from a finance company offering to consolidate my loans into one "easy" payment.

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Easy life obliges us to face hard facts

It has been pretty easy for my generation. In Britain's leafy Jewish communities, the children of the 1980s grew up with the freedoms that our grandparents were denied and the opportunities to which our parents could not aspire. Sure, it came with a deep awareness of the past and, at times, with the terrible mantle of survivor guilt ("You're having a bad day?

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Bad judgment at Strasbourg?

Two months ago, the JC published an exceptionally important article by Jonathan Fisher QC. Drawing attention to wording used in a 2010 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgment, he warned that the court might be minded to restrict or ban the time-honoured Jewish practice of male circumcision throughout Europe.

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Case for and against Holocaust schlock

In his fascinating book, What Ever Happened to Modernism?, the Jewish writer, Gabriel Josipovici, lays into middlebrow writing. What attracted attention when his book came out last year was his attack on some of Britain's best-known contemporary novelists, including Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan.

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Balanced reactions are vital

Last weekend's North London derby was enjoyable, and not merely because it saw Arsenal's second consecutive home victory over Spurs. It was that, for a welcome period, my Twitter and Facebook pages were filled with something other than talk of Israel and Gaza.

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Media should use ceasefire to reflect on double standards

The mobilisation of Israeli forces around Gaza this week was strikingly reminiscent of the British and American build-up of troops along the Kuwait and Iraq borders before Operation Desert Storm, the massive armoured counter-attack that hurled Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991.

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Maureen, mothers and me

This week's column is going to be about mums. But, before I get pinned to the wall of a bakery in Temple Fortune again, allow me to emphasise that it is NOT about Jewish mums. No.

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Sondheim's bissel night music

What makes a Jewish artist a Jewish Artist? It's a question that occurred to me again some months ago, watching the thought-provoking revival of Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods in New York.

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The Church chose. Why are we still waiting on a chief?

The appointment last week of the new Archbishop of Canterbury should be of Jewish interest in one respect at least: it took only eight months after Rowan Williams announced his retirement for the Anglican Church to name Bishop Justin Welby as its new head.

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