Hilarious blog from Ben Macintyre at The Times on the discovery that the Fuhrer apparently played a game of cricket against British POWs.

"Adolf Hitler played cricket. He raised his own cricket team to play some British prisoners of war during the First World War, then declared the sport “unmanly” and tried to rewrite the laws of the game.

"The Führer’s First XI sounds like a Spike Milligan joke, but this small nugget of history is true. In all the millions of words written about Hitler, his telling brush with cricket seems to have escaped the attention of historians"

There was the Knesset, all set to pass the most stringent anti-fur legislation in the world, complete with an exemption clause so that Charedim could continue to buy and wear shtreimels, and applauded by Sir Paul McCartney for its humane approach and far-sightedness.
And now what? It's all off.
It turns out that the postponement/cancellation of the legislation is all due to the visit of one Alan Herscovici of the Fur Council of Canada. According to reports, Mr H, who of course has no vested interest in the matter, convinced Knesset members that if they passed the bill then worldwide opposition to shechita would surely follow. And just like that, the Knesset folded.
I have no means of knowing quite what evidence Alan Herscovici brought to the table but I would hope it was more than anecdotes or scare stories. And far be it from me to observe that Israel could really do with a good news story these days...

There is plenty of talk at the moment about the future of Britain’s Jewish community.

Friday night dinner tables are buzzing with debate on why the community’s younger members are leaving in such numbers [aliyah rates were last year at their highest for 25 years].

People keep asking me how British Jews will survive if robbed of a generation of community leaders.

And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord....

They must have been doing their Pesach shopping.

"The bills are quite steep this year," Rabbi Julian Schindler, of the Chief Rabbi's marriage authorisation office, told the United Synagogue council this week. Having just been to the shops, he now understood the meaning of Ha Lachma Anya, the Bread of Afflication....

Aren't we fast tipping over the edge from hysteria into psychopathology when the brother-in-law of the Israeli Prime Minister labels the President of the United States an anti-semite? Hagai Ben-Artzi told Israel Army Radio: "Think about it. If you had heard of someone who for 20 years sat in church and heard anti-Semitic sermons and didn't get up to leave after two weeks, wouldn't you think he identifies with it? As a politician running for presidency he had to hide it, but it comes out every time and I think we just have to say it plainly: 'There is an anti-Semitic president in America'."

This is presumably why the White House appointed Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff to the President; David Axelrod, Senior Advisor; Ronald Klain, Chief of Staff to the Vice President; Larry Summers and Paul Volcker,Economic Advisors to the President; Tim Geithner, Treasury Secretary, and Peter Orszag, Head of Budget.

Or are they all self-hating Jews?

Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliyashiv, who is regarded the world's foremost strictly Orthodox leader, is celebrating his 100th birthday in Israel.
A hundertundzwantzig!

Do you want something to think about over Passover? How about this - there are 400,000 Jewish students on campus in the USA at any one time.

The chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, who is more aware of what is going around the US Jewish community than any one else, reports: "Young people don't feel an innate connection with Israel anymore."

Fifth question for Passover: What is the implication of this?

"In many ways," muses the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, "he's very human." Now, who could we possibly be talking about? A gorilla at London Zoo? A goat? Certainly, some member of the animal kingdom for whom she has a soft spot.
No.
Ms Duffy, of whom I thought better, was referring to footballer David Beckham, to whose ankle, and its torn Achilles tendon, she HAS WRITTEN A POEM.
Give me strength.