The radical cure for the ills of Jewish football

Fifty years this year --- that is how long I have been playing Jewish football. Hard to believe. It feels longer. My first team was Bar Kochba FC, named after a Jewish revolutionary who not only was leader of a gloriously futile insurrection against the Emperor Hadrian 2,000 years ago, but was also rumoured to be the first biblical character to wear moulded studs.

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Why money does not bring wealth

There was a moment on the brink of the financial collapse last summer so symbolic that it could almost be a commentary on our times. At the end of July 2008, Damien Hirst put a sculpture for sale at Sotheby’s. It sold for 10-and-a-half million pounds, one of the highest prices ever paid for the work of a living artist. Hirst called it “the Golden Calf”.

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Don’t knock foreign workers

Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the European Union’s most extensive and significant enlargement. On 1 May 2004, ten new member states from central and Eastern Europe joined the EU club.

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Holocaust denial is Iran’s deadly weapon

Let us be clear. There is no such thing as “anti-Zionism”. What masquerades as anti-Zionism is antisemitism, because its proponents set standards and ask questions of Israel which they never apply to any other nation state.

Last week in Geneva we saw the ferocity of this form of antisemitism. President Ahmadinejad may have taken centre stage with his denouncements of Israel but he was not alone. There was a lot of support. While the rhetoric is largely empty, the attitudes which underpin Ahmadinejad’s world view can also be found closer to home.

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Darling, you’ve driven me away

Who would have thought it! Me! Here! In Switzerland! Visiting estate agents! But then who would have thought that Alistair Darling would hike up top rates of taxes and turn Britain from a nation of shopkeepers to a nation of tax-avoiders, all of them packing their bags for their nearest tax haven.

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How Jewish and Muslim kids can get together

For all the passions aroused by Israel’s incursion into Gaza at the beginning of the year, joint Muslim-Jewish initiatives have been progressing.

In February, the Spiro Ark co-hosted a concert on London’s South Bank by Berakah, an interfaith band of Muslim, Jewish and Christian musicians. Its partner was the Vigo Group, a company owned by the Muslim Shah family, who came on board when they happened to buy the building next door to the Spiro’s headquarters and got chatting.

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A very rocky road to spirituality

A study conducted by researchers at the Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati Ohio has concluded that young American Jews are increasingly replacing ethnic identification with identification through spirituality. That is to say that, in the past, young Jews identified with Judaism on an ethnic level through such aspects as food, language, ritual practice and a sense of shared kinship with other Jews. Today, however, it seems this is being replaced by a quest for a sense of purpose and meaning, manifested in the growing interest in Kabbalah and such phenomena as Jewish healing.

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Board of Deputies: vote to stop BNP

I make no apology for the words that follow in this column. I am angry but also determined. In his JC column of April 3, Geoffrey Alderman made some uninformed comments, both about the Board of Deputies’ campaign against the BNP and the threat which the Jewish community faces from the growth of the far-right across the country.

I am not concerned to address every comment made in his piece, but rather to explain why, in my last campaign as president of the Board of Deputies, I am so committed to this issue.

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For Israel’s birthday, stop Iran

Whereas on Pesach, the youngest present asks, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”, on Yom Ha’atzmaut, the entire Jewish people ask collectively, “How is this year different from all other years?”. As we celebrate the 61st anniversary of the state of Israel, this year’s differences include new governments in both Israel and the US, and a world that faces unprecedented global challenges, economically and strategically.

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Today’s destitute ‘slaves’ who need our help

As we sat down last week around our Seder tables to re-enact the story of our redemption from Egypt, we had the opportunity to reflect on modern-day slavery. Poverty and destitution are forms of slavery because they make us powerless and deprive us of the chance to exercise control over our lives. Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg recently remarked that he was horrified that destitute asylum seekers have to exist on £5 a week. That was, he said, less than he spends on care of his dog.

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