Comment

Remember: when loyalty is blind, you can’t see straight

Richard Verber — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:09:52 +0100

I was standing in Auschwitz last month when news filtered through that Margaret Thatcher had died. After flying home from March of the Living, we landed to newspapers, television and social media saturated with analysis of her time at the top.

Views were strong. There were those arguing with passion that she had saved Britain, successfully taking on the unions and forging economic stability. Equally strident critics blamed her for destroying communities, particularly in working-class, northern cities.

Twitter - the social media platform whose greatest success is perhaps to give a voice to the voiceless - was unrelenting in its coverage. And the photos and videos from parties marking her death found a ready audience online.

Two things struck me as I caught up with all of the commotion. First, how deeply un-Jewish the celebrations were but, more usefully, how the debate over Thatcher's legacy has a lot to teach us about how we talk about Israel today.

Judaism doesn't take kindly to celebrating people's deaths - even those who might have made us suffer. Two of our most popular festivals are marked by consciously recognising the personal sorrows of people who have caused us harm.

On Pesach, at the Seder table, we spill a few drops of our wine at the mention of each of the 10 plagues. While the plagues were an essential part of the process leading to the Children of Israel's emancipation from Egypt, we deliberately waste some of our wine - a substance that is generally a symbol of rejoicing - in recognition of the suffering of the Egyptians.

And on Rosh Hashanah, we remember the suffering of the mother of Sisera, whose story is told in the book of Judges. Sisera is a brutal and violent Assyrian warrior who spends much of his time raping and pillaging. He is killed, memorably, by Yael after a battle with the Israelites.

The following evening, when Sisera doesn't return from the battlefield, his mother, full of anguish, stares out of the window hoping he'll soon come home. She consoles herself that he is probably busy enjoying the spoils of war and she cries 101 times in anger at the Israelites.

The shofar blasts on Rosh Hashanah somehow counteract her curses. But she whimpers 101 times; we blow the shofar only 100, holding back one blast to show our compassion for a weeping mother.

Britain was clearly divided on whether it should weep over Thatcher's death. Britons of all ages - even those born after her time in office - had an opinion. Yet strikingly, even when the criticism was at its most unpleasant, or praise at its most fulsome, none of the debate was deemed "anti-British". Political disagreements were seismic, full of bile (and at times hatred), but recognised as part of mainstream public discourse. The Jewish community played a part in the debate too: responses ranged from fond recollections of how Thatcher enjoyed a good relationship with British Jews to a high-profile funeral snub. Again, though, nothing which was termed "anti-British".

Why is it, then, that when our small and fractious community comes to discuss Israeli politics, we are only too keen to label each other as "anti-Israel" or "anti-Zionist" if we find that someone has a different opinion to our own? When was the last time you heard a critic of Francois Hollande, the French president, be called "anti-France"?

If only we could discuss Israel with the same maturity we (perhaps) approach British politics. The idea of using support for every single government policy as a yardstick by which to measure one's patriotism is nonsense (unless, perhaps, you find yourself in North Korea).

Mark Twain, he so beloved of those in need of a good quote, got it right. In 1905 he wrote the essay The Czar's Soliloquy. "The only rational patriotism," he said, "is loyalty to the nation ALL the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it".

There seems to be greater tolerance for exploring the nuances of British politics than those of Israel. As a community, 65 years after Israel's establishment, we need to move away from our knee-jerk reaction of crying foul whenever we perceive someone to be criticising Israel. Of course, assaults sometimes come from those who have no desire to see a Jewish state flourishing in the Middle East and such attacks need to be called out for what they are. But a robust democracy can cope with robust debate and doesn't require repetitive, unflinching, unthinking advocacy whatever the circumstances.

Blind loyalty doesn't exist in any democracy in the world. It shouldn't with Israel either.

Thank you for helping my mum

Jonni Berger — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:12:46 +0100

What do a student in Birmingham, a tour guide in Jerusalem, a housewife in Bournemouth, a doctor in Sydney, a teacher in Bushey, an actor in Finchley and a rabbi in New York have in common? If they're Jewish, maybe religion? But if they're Reform, Orthodox, culturally Jewish or a "BuJew" (Buddhist Jew) between 16 and 70, how likely is it that they would all be united by a common purpose, particularly when that purpose is to come to the aid of a hitherto unknown, north-London Jewish mother? Not a celebrity or a communal figure, just someone loved by her family though a stranger to the majority.

You may already be aware; you may even have taken action. Over the past four months, I've been truly touched by the support of previously unconnected strangers who have attempted to help "Sharon Berger, 61, from Harrow" - otherwise known as my mum.

Like the son who doesn't know how to ask at the Seder, I was the son who once would never have dreamt of asking for help so publicly . But when my dear mum was diagnosed with a life-threatening condition curable only via a stem-cell donation from a stranger, I knew I needed to ask for help - and quickly. Our 999 call was to the entire Jewish community and they responded with the blues and twos.

Of course, some decided that being a donor wasn't for them, whether because they couldn't handle the potential consequences or didn't take the time to get past their misconceptions. But that didn't stop us.

Spit4Mum, as the campaign became known, captured the hearts and minds of so many, not only "traditional do-gooders" but individuals across generations, irrespective of affiliation or denomination. Anybody can be a lifesaver and what spurred us on was the thought that the next person to register could be her lifesaver.

While social media is too often abused by those conducting witch-hunts, or used for sharing inane detail, the worldwide reach of Spit4Mum has shown that sites like Twitter can be valuable tools for appealing to the good in people.

The press, and particularly the JC, also came out in spades to show their support - not only looking for a story - with journalists registering as donors and keeping the coverage going throughout. The young, often dismissed as self-obsessed, got behind Spit4Mum in a big way –- with sixth-formers and students pushing for new donors in places where campaigns are typically unable to make headway.

For those who joined in, of course, involvement was motivated by the recognition that what happened to my mum could happen to theirs. But their individual mitzvot have created a ripple effect. What started as a response to an appeal to help a fellow Jew could help many others around the globe, Jewish and non-Jewish.

Thankfully and amazingly, a match was found during the course of our appeal. It wouldn't have been possible without so many individuals in the Jewish community taking action - showing that, as a group, we are stronger when we work together.

I am proud of having led an increase in the numbers of Jewish donors on the UK stem cell register - up by around 30 per cent in only three months - not to mention the impact worldwide.

My mum still has a long way to go to recover. While we don't know what the future holds, we desperately hope that her transplant will be successful and enable her to reclaim her life. If our family's story was a Hollywood film, it would be introduced with a dramatic voiceover full of promise and surprise. I sincerely hope that it also has a Hollywood ending.

Toxic, weak and chaotic at the Board

Jerry Lewis — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:25:01 +0100

The departure of Jon Benjamin as CEO of the Board of Deputies is not only welcome it is also, I believe, much overdue. He is one of the nicest guys around but the introduction of fresh blood at the Board cannot come soon enough to improve effectiveness across the organisation.

Against a background of rising antisemitism, growing anti- Zionism and ongoing attacks on shechita and brit milah, the need for a pro–active Board has never been greater. Yet it has become increasingly irrelevant and has been outpaced by the Jewish Leadership Council. Not, as many suppose, because the JLC's members want to run our community but because, under the Board's current lay and professional leadership, it has left so many gaps - black holes, to be more precise - that, were it not for the quick-reacting JLC team, would have left our community in a far worse place.

Fitting the JLC and the Board onto the same stage was always going to be a difficult juggling act. In my periods as a Vice President and Senior Vice President of the Board, I was opposed to the JLC, fearing it would eventually dominate the communal scene and diminish the role of the Board.

Former Board President and senior JLC office holder Henry Grunwald ensured in his own way that the two organisations worked in parallel. But they rarely worked together.

And he made two strategic errors that lost the Board key roles: hiving off the protection of shechita to Shechita UK; and the creation of the London Jewish Forum to tackle the Livingstone threat. Both should have remained under the Board's auspices.

Jon Benjamin's departure coincides with what can best be described as a calamity in other staffing at the Board. Two key departments have no experienced personnel. Four key staff have left over the last month; another is due to go on maternity leave next month.

Staff morale is already very low; the atmosphere has been described as 'toxic'.

Junior staff are paid such ridiculously low salaries that, within a year or two, they move on to a better level of remuneration. Such short-sightedness wrecks continuity and gives no encouragement to those who wish to make a career in our community. We lose talented young people.

I have held my counsel until now and admit I did not do enough when I was a Vice President, until May 2012. But I can keep quiet no more. The President, Vivian Wineman, and his team are presiding over the rapid disintegration of what was once an organisation of which I and so many others were immensely proud. Any Deputy close to the Board will be witness to the alarming signs of chaos, verging on disaster.

Small wonder the Jewish Leadership Council have surveyed the situation and are taking urgent measures to plug the numerous lacunae.

For a start, the President pays scant attention to constitutional guidance and precepts designed (by me amongst others) to protect the Board from unwelcome influences, such as restricting speakers at debates to just two minutes, ignoring the standing order that allows for four.

Individuals are appointed to posts, expenditure is approved without adequate scrutiny and the Board signs up to campaigns which, according to its rules, should follow a debate and the agreement of all 265 Deputies. But communication is poor or non-existent, and attempts to ascertain information can hit a brick wall.

For years there has been harmony between the various segments of the community represented at the Board. Henry Grunwald and I worked scrupulously to ensure that no sector or denominatio was disadvantaged in our decisions and work. That is now changing. One wing - Reform - is now trying to assert itself and throw out the careful balance on which the Board depends. The President has allowed this.

Worse still is the atmosphere at the top. The Board are proposing a Code of Conduct for Deputies, a move I championed for 30 years. It will deal with a host of issues. But as far as I am concerned, the most important section relates to bullying. In my last years as a Vice-President, I sensed an uncomfortable climate amongst staff.

As for a President who has verbally attacked his own colleagues at the Jewish Leadership Council: this does such harm to the very relations that need to be encouraged and improved. Little wonder that those same - usually very generous - individuals have tended to shun the Board's requests for donations.

The Board used to have ten committees on differing subjects (Israel, international, shechita, education, parliament etc) each of which elected their own chairman. They were knowledgeable and experienced and constituted the Executive. About 40% of Deputies were thus 'involved' in the Board.

Then management consultants were called in, who failed to understand the representative and democratic nature of the Board. Now only 50 Deputies are involved and there are just four divisions of 12 people. The four Honorary Officers are elected separately and appointed by the President to head a Division, with little regard for their abilities or knowledge.

Add to that a Chief Executive who had what might politely be described as a hands-off management style and one quickly sees a recipe for disaster.

Judge for yourself. When a delegation led by the JLC goes to meet a minister, it is serviced with a briefing document listing all the participants, the issues to be raised, who is to lead on each issue, descriptions of who they are to face on the other side of the table and on occasion a draft statement to be agreed at the conclusions of the talks.

In all my time as an Honorary Officer, not once was I given even a single such note. Hopeless.

No wonder we do not operate as we should.

Another example. I was asked by the President to work on a scheme for Israel and other advocacy. With my experience in Westminster, Whitehall and the media I had the ideas and know how. But even though a budget and an intern were provided, every attempt to get the scheme off the ground was frustrated.

The Board is in a complete mess. It is a relief, although no way to run an organisation, that the JLC repeatedly steps in to provide cover for our failures. The Honorary Officers of the Board will deny all this but the JLC and many others who try to deal with the Board have been aware for a long time that it is no longer 'fit for purpose'.

When Mick Davis addressed the Board - and was treated despicably by Deputies - he could not have been clearer. The JLC sees itself primarily as a strategic body. It was constituted to allow key communal organisations to deal collectively with risks and deliver solutions.

From a position of having opposed the JLC, due principally to its undemocratic set up, I have now turned 180 degrees. It is a vital piece of our communal architecture.

Out of the shambolic situation the Board is now in, the best move we can now make to save it is to secure an immediate merger of the two civil services. That will automatically cut out rivalry and enable those who know what they are doing to get on with the real work - and to do so under the imprint of the Board.

This will need goodwill from both sides and carefully worked on safeguards to retain the democratic and representative nature of the Board. There will need to be properly elected committees to set out policy which, via accountable, transparent procedures, a revitalised staff can implement. Talks are now underway - but without the vast majority of Deputies being involved in any changes.

The CEO's departure and the serious situation facing the Board today afford an opportunity to reconstruct the Board to work in partnership with the JLC, with staff able to work in a professional atmosphere, properly rewarded for their endeavours in a framework that adheres to the principles of accountability, openness and transparency, retaining the democratic and representative aspects of the Board to be combined with the professionalism and well resourced JLC. It could be a winning combination.

There is a place for both organisations to work alongside each other. Each of us have a role to play but, for the Board to continue, it now has no option but to share resources and staff with the JLC.

I desperately want the Board to survive but the only way left is for a rapid merger with the JLC at staff levels and a new democratic structure for the combined organisation. I am prepared to work for that. I hope Deputies will respond to the call to enable this to happen as soon as possible.

In Venice, I needed a route canal

David Robson — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:10:12 +0100

I was in Venice. It was Shabbes. I thought I would visit the area where the Venetian republic confined its Jews 500 years ago - the place that gave the world the word, ghetto. But no sooner had I set out than I got totally lost. For centuries, Jews have been trying to find their way out of the ghetto, my problem was different - I couldn't find my way in. That is a common experience for me. I have no sense of direction whatsoever. But is that just me, or is it Jews? I don't think it is just me.

The worst marital spat I have ever witnessed was between a Jewish couple. I was travelling in their car on the way to a funeral. Neither of them was the deceased, though by the time we eventually got there each wished the other was. We had totally lost our way and, as you know, you can't be very late for a Jewish funeral because they really don't last very long. "Reuben," the wife screamed, "I knew you'd do this, I knew you'd do this!" How did she know? Because he's Jewish and that's what we do. We lose our way. Reuben could easily navigate a path through a complicated law book but the third turning off a roundabout proved impossible.

It's not a new problem for us. Crossing the Sinai desert should have been a relatively short trip. We left Egypt in a hurry but it turned out to be more haste, less speed. Other peoples would have completed the journey in a matter of days; it took the Jews 40 years. We were heading for the Promised Land but clearly we had no idea where it was and certainly didn't know the best route to get there.

For gentiles, explorers are people who go from point A to a rarely-visited point B in the most direct way possible - Ranulph Fiennes (or Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes to give his full moniker) heads for the Pole by the shortest route. But if his name were Raphael Feinstein he'd still be looking for the Pole and we'd still be looking for him. We simply are not great explorers in that sense. Exploring the human mind, that's quite another matter. That's something we do, it's a sedentary activity you can comfortably do in your own home. Fiennes has a sledge, Freud had a couch.

There is a school of thought that believes Christopher Columbus was a Marrano Jew just pretending to be Christian. I am of that school. He is obviously the greatest Jewish explorer in history (not that there's much competition) and he certainly did his exploring the Jewish way - he set off in search of the New World, got to the Bahamas and thought it was India.

That was more or less what happened to me in Venice. In fairness to myself, one canal does look very much like another but nobody I met there got as lost as I did. Unlike the simpletons who value simplicity, we are people with a respect for complexity and doubt. Whatever the subject, we tend to say: "On the one hand… on the other hand…" In my case, it was: "On the one hand, I could go right; on the other hand, I could go left." I always chose the other hand and I was always wrong.

Grand gestures in art and religion

Naftali Brawer — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:34:43 +0100

The Tate Modern's current retrospective of Roy Lichtenstein's pop art includes a series of 1960s paintings called "brushstrokes". In these paintings, the Jewish artist parodies abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning who freely expressed their feelings through "action painting" by throwing, smearing or dripping paint on canvas. Lichtenstein parodies this by carefully recreating spontaneous expression in a highly disciplined, controlled and contrived way. Describing his work, the artist said: "Brushstrokes in painting convey a sense of grand gesture but, in my hands, the brushstroke becomes the depiction of a grand gesture."

This distinction between the grand gesture and the depiction of the grand gesture brought to mind the work of the 19th-century philosopher of religion and psychologist, William James.

In his 1902 book, Varieties of Religious Experience, James makes a clear distinction between the spontaneous religious experience of the founders of a religion - whom he calls religious geniuses - and that of the "ordinary religious believer" who comes later and "follow[s] the conventional observances":

"I speak not now of your ordinary religious believer, who follows the conventional observances… His religion has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit. It would profit us little to study this second-hand religious life. We must make search rather for the original experiences which were the pattern-setters to all this mass of suggested feeling and imitated conduct. These experiences we can only find in individuals for whom religion exists not as a dull habit, but as an acute fever rather."

For James, there is little value in this "second-hand religious life". It is the grand gesture of the original experience that is of genuine value, not - using Lichtenstein's brushstrokes as a metaphor - the reproduction of it.

To better understand James, let's take an example from our own Jewish tradition: prayer. According to Maimonides, the Torah obligates a Jew to pray daily. However, the words, text, structure and time of this daily prayer were not originally defined and it was left to each individual to express whatever spontaneous feelings welled up within:

As he explains in his Laws of Prayer: "There is an affirmative command to pray each day… but the number of prayers is not from the Torah, nor is the text of this prayer from the Torah. And prayer has no fixed time from the Torah… Rather, the obligation of this command is as follows: that a person plead and pray each day, and speak praise for the Almighty and then request his needs that he requires with petition and supplication, and then give praise and thanks to God for the goodness that He has bestowed upon him - each in accordance with his ability… Some pray once a day, others pray many times."

In Mishnaic times, there were no prayer books and even if there were, they would have been of little use to the masses that were illiterate. The role of the prayer leader, the Shaliach Tzibur, was to improvise. His function was to capture and articulate in elegant language what the congregation was feeling. Eventually, a skeleton structure for daily prayer - the Amidah - emerged. Over time this was then fleshed out with specific texts that became fixed. Times for prayer were also set. The result of all this is that when we pray today we do so within a fairly rigid linguistic and temporal "second-hand" framework.

James would say that the early form of prayer is the genuine religious experience, in as much as it was a spontaneous outpouring of a deeply personal experience of God. Like an abstract expressionist it was a "grand gesture". He would deem our highly regulated, fixed and structured prayer today, "second-hand" - or, to return to the art metaphor, a "depiction of a grand gesture".

It is interesting that the great Chasidic master, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev - who died when James was a young man - raised this very point in relation to prayer, which he felt had become stale and a matter of rote rather than an exciting, spontaneous outpouring of one's soul before God.

In a rich parable, as detailed in Samuel Dresner's biography, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak illustrates what happens when the original art form of prayer is replaced by a dull habit: "There once was a king who so loved music that he directed his musicians to play before him at a certain hour each morning… for many years all went well. The musicians delighted in playing each morning before the king, and the king delighted in hearing their music.

"When at last the musicians died, their sons sought to take their places. But, alas, they had neither mastered the art of their fathers nor had they kept their instruments in proper condition. Worse still, the sons no longer loved the king as did their fathers but set their eyes only upon the reward, blindly following their fathers' custom of arriving early each morning at the palace to perform. But the harsh sounds that emerged were so offensive to the ear that after a time the king no longer listened to their music… Still there were among the sons of the old musicians some who recognised that they were not worthy to play before the king. And they were determined to correct the situation. They set about the difficult task of relearning the forgotten art… Thus was their music received by the king with favour."

The early musicians in the parable represent the early generations of spiritually sensitive worshipers, for whom prayer was a first-hand, religious experience. The ignorant musicians who play with imperfect instruments, represent the vast majority of people in subsequent generations who approach prayer in this second-hand, superficial way. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and his followers are represented by the small group of young musicians who try to re-learn the craft of their fathers amid the din and cacophony of the other tuneless musicians.

But is James justified in dismissing organised, structured religion as second-hand? Is there not something of value in the structure and formula even as its spontaneity is compromised?

The contemporary philosopher of religion, Charles Taylor, thinks James is too harsh. Taylor argues that, in order for the ideas and insights of religious geniuses to be handed down, there needs to be some conceptual and practical structure. How else can believers be organised to take action that flows from their faith?

Taylor goes further and argues that the corporate or collective religious life - a community of like-minded believers engaging in a common set of rituals and customs - is intrinsically valuable from a religious perspective. His framework is Christianity but if one applies his thinking to Judaism there is a further element that commends structure over spontaneity and that is the importance of halachah as a well-trodden path along which the observant Jew journeys.

Halachah does not involve "spontaneous" or acute religious fervour. It demands discipline and adherence to a fairly rigid structure of behaviour. In contrast to Rabbi Levi Yitzchak's parable emphasising the importance of individualistic expression in ritual there is a striking passage in Rav Soloveitchik's Halakhic Man that emphasises the importance of dry, steadfast, obedience of halachah at the expense of a God-intoxicated religious experience:

"Once my father was standing on the synagogue platform on Rosh Hashanah, ready to guide the order of the sounding of the shofar. The shofar sounder, a God-fearing Chasid who was very knowledgeable in the mystical doctrine of the 'Alter Rebbe,' Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady, began to weep. My father turned to him and said; "Do you weep when you take the lulav? Why then do you weep when you sound the shofar? Are not both commandments of God?"

For "Halakhic Man", the Chasidic or Jamesian first-hand, spontaneous religious experience is at best unhelpful and at worst spiritual self-indulgence. The important thing is clinical adherence to the law. Religious fervour expressed through weeping, or dancing for that matter, has no place in his religious outlook.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and Rav Soloveitchik represent two poles within Jewish thought; spontaneity and structure. As with all polarities the key is not to chose between them but to hold them in creative tension. Structure without spontaneity is dull, hollow and uninspiring. Spontaneity free of structure is wild and leads to antinomianism.

Having said this, at the moment - at least within Orthodox Judaism - there is an unhealthy bias towards structure; an obsession with conformity and religious box ticking and not nearly enough attention to developing a heightened sensitivity to God. To paraphrase a colleague recently; it's time we stopped worshipping the shulchan aruch (code of Jewish law) and started worshipping God through the shulchan aruch. It is time we redress the balance by seeking deeper meaning in our rituals and infuse the meticulous practice of halachah with a deep sense of God–consciousness. In doing so we will renew our faith and thereby inspire the next generation.

This church report on Israel sets the clock back 70 years

Patrick Morrow — Sun, 12 May 2013 10:11:28 +0100

'A slap in the face to the Jewish community" is how Jonathan Arkush, vice-president of the Board of Deputies, responded to the report, The inheritance of Abraham? A report on the "promised land". This document comes from the Church of Scotland's church and society council, and is to be debated by the general assembly next week. As a Christian (an Anglican priest), I can sympathise. There are several contenders for its most contentious phrase. But the sharpest must be the rhetorical question: "Would the Jewish people today have a fairer claim to the land if they dealt justly with the Palestinians?"

So, has Jewish-Christian dialogue reached the end of the line, following the recent unhappiness with the Methodist Church and the Church of England? Or is there still a case for the differing parties to meet, talk, listen, and arrive at - not necessarily agreement (for why should we agree?) - but a better quality of disagreement? I have to believe the latter.

What of the substance of the report? The church and society council is clearly committed to work for justice. Its other reports are on human rights, and poverty. But when it comes to Israel, its attention slips from the modern realities.

Here are words absent from the report: Herzl, secular, Knesset, Fatah, Hamas.These absences are telling: the paper does not seriously engage with contemporary Judaism, religious or secular, or contemporary Israeli politics. Islam and Islamophobia are both mentioned only once. So it is not that the contemporary Palestinian reality is more truthfully encountered. A radical political-theological critique of Israel would have been one thing, if still controversial. But the paper barely addresses the politics. So what is really going on?

The bulk of the report discusses how the Hebrew Bible and New Testament treat "the land". God's promise of the land to Abraham's descendants is held to be "literal" and "unconditional". Devastatingly wrongly, based on little more than one quote from David Ben-Gurion, the report determines: "This is the position of Zionism".

The second biblical idea is a land held in trust: God offers the land on condition that the inhabitants act justly, as the prophets insist. It is in this context that the question of the "fairness" of the Jewish claim today is raised. But even this conditional offer is held to be problematic. Drawing on the US Jewish critic of Zionism, Mark Braverman, the report finds the root problem to be Jewish notions of "separateness, vulnerability and specialness". Bluntly, the argument is not only that Zionism is bad, but so is the conviction that "the Jewish people are serving God's special purpose". It is shocking to read such a cavalier undermining of mainstream Judaism. Yet if the idea of a special vocation from God is unacceptable, orthodox Christianity is itself stymied.

The third idea is of a land with a universal mission. Evidence for this is supposedly found in the book of Jonah, which brings the message of God's universal care, from "a time when Jewish people were turning inwards". But is it really Jesus who putatively sets things right, offering "a radical critique of Jewish specialness and exclusivism"?

So the report's basis is a good number of the tropes of Christian supersessionism. According to this Christian triumphalism, the Hebrew Bible can be portrayed as bad (promoting Zionism), or as useful preparation (the warnings of the prophets); either way, it is exclusivist and it takes the great universaliser - Jesus - to heal. In this frame, it is unsurprising that the newer "problem" of the "ethno-national" state of Israel can apparently be solved only by the universalism of Christianity. Bluntly, it is as if there had been no Jewish-Christian dialogue since the Second World War.

But there has. Other Christians' claims are not negated by this rather breathless document. The Vatican has said of the Jewish attachment to the land: "Christians are invited to understand this religious attachment ,which finds its roots in biblical tradition, without however making their own any particular religious interpretation of this relationship." We can honour a profound theology of the land, even though it is not ours.

The most generous reading of the report is that it is struggling to say something like this: as Christians we are not compelled to have a Christian theology of the land. The real protagonist in sight is the archetypal "Christian Zionist". In any event, my prayer is that the general assembly will have the courage to listen. The dialogue needs their more-considered input.

How to explain why I won't date outside the faith?

Abigail Radnor — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:04:21 +0100

The first time I told a boy I couldn't go out with him because he was not Jewish I was 14 years old and I didn't know what I was saying. I was being courted by a charming, refreshingly tall rugby player, also 14 years old, who I just didn't fancy. So, instead of hurting his feelings, I decided to play the Jewish card. He seemed to move on pretty quickly, as 14-year-olds tend to do.

The next time I told a young man I couldn't see him because he wasn't Jewish, I was 23 and things were not quite as simple. In my mind, it wasn't serious - he was moving abroad at the end of the year and I was in my early 20s with little thought of marriage, so I didn't think it would cause much harm.

I was wrong. A few months into the relationship, I made a half-joke about how he would never meet my mother. He probed, I struggled to explain and he didn't find it funny. He was so hurt that I wouldn't even consider taking our relationship further because of a religion I haphazardly observed. There followed a few weeks of squabbles and tears before a phone call that concluded: "The day you mentioned the Jewish thing. That was the end of it for me." From that point on, I decided it was unfair for me even to casually date someone who wasn't Jewish. I didn't want to hurt anyone like that again.

"The Jewish thing." How many times have I had to explain "the Jewish thing"? And how many times have I failed so miserably? I have been trying to explain for a decade and I still struggle to find the right words. A colleague with a proclivity for numbers once calculated the percentage of the British population that I would permit myself to date - "0.025 per cent", he announced, throwing me a quizzical and pitiful look.

I often find myself being the token Jew in the room. And although I know we are not a perfect people and I am far from a perfect Jew, I take great pride in my Jewish identity. This is what I try to convey when I explain to friends who struggle to understand why I won't even consider a relationship with someone outside the faith.

They invariably ask "but do you not think if someone loved you enough they would get that and do the Jewish thing for you?" At which point I try to explain that doing "the Jewish thing" is not so simple.

"It's cultural," I tell friends over drinks and not quite so kosher meals on a Friday night. Naturally, they stare at me bemused. How can I belong to such a vastly different culture when I behave just like them? "Erm yes, well er…" This conversation does not bring out my articulate side. Once, I told a friend that when I do get married and they attend my Jewish wedding they would understand. As though on witnessing the shafta mayim dance all would suddenly become clear.

"I want to bring up my children the same way I was raised," I try, which firstly baffles those who cannot comprehend why I should concern myself with the lifestyle of my unborn babies at this stage. And then the more fundamental issue: trying to justify why you seem to think your childhood was better than theirs. Never easy.

A few years ago, I had a heated debate with a friend about this. I tried to explain that it was about where I had come from and wanting to find someone who shared those values. "Yeah, but that's like saying because I come from Stoke, I can only go out with people from Stoke," he responded. I squirmed. The rest of the conversation did not go well. I got so exasperated that I fumbled a mention of the Holocaust and it all ended in tears (mine). It wasn't my finest moment.

It is both baffling and depressing that I cannot articulate a decent argument on an issue that I so firmly believe in. But perhaps it is difficult to define because it is beyond logical reason. For me, and I know for many others, being Jewish is intrinsic. Our Judaism may not be as explicit as the more observant members of our community, but that does not mean it is any less important to us and our identities. It is a part of my soul. Therefore my soulmate needs to share it.

And I suppose that is worth putting up with the raised eyebrows and judgment of others who think I am being at best silly and at worst, a little bit racist. Even if that does mean I only have 0.025 per cent of the population to date.

There’s delusion and 'delusion' when it comes to Iran

Con Coughlin — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:58:00 +0100

Ever since Iran's insistence on developing nuclear technology triggered the worlds biggest security nightmare, there have been a number of naive souls who have sought to contend that, on the contrary, we really have nothing to fear.

They argue that any suggestion that the Islamic Republic is working on a clandestine nuclear programme that could be used to fulfil the ayatollahs' oft-stated desire to destroy Israel, is nothing more than anti-Iranian rhetoric whipped up by Western powers that are determined to cut Iran down size.

The latest ingénues - a polite description - to peddle this ludicrous fiction are the journalist Peter Oborne and his fellow author David Morrison in their new book A Dangerous Delusion. Mr Oborne is one of Britain's finest political polemicists and I suspect his unhappy descent into the world of international fantasy has much to do with his association with Mr Morrison, a left-wing activist who takes a perverse interest in twisting the facts to suit his disagreeable political agenda.

Mr Morrison stands accused of suggesting that he believes the death toll figures at Srebrenica during the Bosnian civil war in 1995, which have been physically verified by UN war crimes investigators, were deliberately exaggerated by the West to demonise the Serbs. His attempts to clarify his position on this issue have lacked conviction. And his dubious grasp of historical fact was again laid bare during a recent podcast I did with him for the Telegraph website when he made the preposterous claim that the current Iranian leadership are not Holocaust deniers.

Given the authors' alarming ignorance about the rudimentary principles that underpin the current Iranian regime, it is a wonder that their warped interpretation of the facts ever made it into print. Certainly, the book's title more aptly applies to the specious arguments advanced by the authors themselves than the way the West has attempted to handle the Iranian crisis during the past decade.

But when there is a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the facts, it is vital that peddlers of untruths are brought to book, lest their ridiculous claims somehow acquire credence. For example, take the authors' fanciful suggestion in the opening chapter that, since Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968, it has been scrupulous in complying with its international obligations.

Setting aside the fact that Iran signed the treaty when the Shah was still in power, and long before the ayatollahs seized control, the authors appear to have paid no heed to more than a decade of alarming reports published by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, which have detailed a number of grave violations. These include enriching uranium to a level far in excess of that required for peaceful nuclear programmes, and failing to declare the existence of key facilities, such as the underground uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

Add to this evidence that Iran has conducted research on missile delivery systems that can only be used in atom bombs, and you see why the West has concerns about the direction of Iran's nuclear programme.

In the most authoritative intelligence assessment yet made public, the CIA has concluded that Iran had an active nuclear weapons programme until 2003, which was frozen after the invasion of neighbouring Iraq. All the evidence suggests Iran is now very close to resuming this programme, assuming it has not already done so.

These are just a few of the facts the authors of this incompetent attempt to rewrite history have deliberately chosen to ignore. We should all do the same by treating their conclusions with the contempt they deserve.

Our community must not ignore its genetic heritage

Ellie Cannon — Sun, 05 May 2013 09:41:29 +0100

While these days it is politically incorrect to refer to certain traits or features as being particularly Jewish, we cannot deny what is in our genes. And as well as the characteristics so familiar to us, these sadly also convey genetic illnesses. Many genetic illnesses are prevalent within the Jewish community, as we remain a tight-knit population that generally marries our own. Our only realistic answer is knowledge and understanding of how to manage our risks. In short, it's time for the Jewish community to take control of our genetic fate.

One of the diseases which is known to be prevalent in Ashkenazi Jews is Tay-Sachs. Being a "carrier" of the illness confers no medical problem to an individual. But if that individual conceives with a fellow carrier the chance of having a child with this devastating condition is one in four.

The National Screening Committee (UK NSC) has recently announced that it has no plan to offer a nationwide screening programme for Tay-Sachs or the other genetic conditions specific to the Ashkenazi population, including Canavan Disease and Familial Dysautonomia.

This is perfectly reasonable given that we offer no other pre-natal genetic testing in this country on a population basis. Because the risk of these rare conditions is concentrated in a few areas, a population-wide programme is unjustifiable. But the NSC acknowledges that testing is highly valued by the Jewish population and will make sure it is still available to those at higher risk.

Given this, we must acknowledge that screening for Tay–Sachs remains our own personal and community responsibility. It's up to us.

No letter is going to arrive in the post like it does for cervical or bowel cancer screening. There may be no national programme but there is still provision for screening for anyone who is at risk of being a carrier. That means all Ashkenazi Jews can be screened within the NHS - but that you have to proactively request it.

Taking control of your health is part of modern medicine. Doctors also now expect patients to be in control. With so much access to information online, we no longer preach to the unwitting. Patients of all ages are now far more aware of medical terminology and treatments and should be on board for clinical decision-making. Thankfully, we no longer practice paternalistic medicine, and the patient's agenda is at the forefront of a good clinicians mind. The happy consequence of this open landscape is that it should make requesting screening easy.

My concern is that our beloved NHS is not well-used to proactivity. We react to health problems. It's not the culture to try and predict them. In contrast, in Israel genetic testing at the pre-conception stage is offered as a standard for a vast range of diseases. Yet here in the UK it accounts for very few GP consultations. We just expect people to get on with it. In my experience, patients only come to discuss starting a family if they have a background medical issue that may affect a pregnancy - one that they are already aware of. Given Tay-Sachs screening has NHS funding for everyone within the Ashkenazi community, pre-conception counselling with your GP should be the norm within the community.

In order to be proactive, it is equally imperative to ensure knowledge of genetic illness among the community is not lost. We have had such successful awareness and screening programmes since 1980 that only one in 360,000 live births is affected by Tay-Sachs. What is more phenomenal is that these births are rarely within the Ashkenazi population, because we have succeeded in sustaining the dialogue about Tay-Sachs. The concern for the future is that the conversation is lost - out of sight out of mind. We have seen this happen with vaccination programmes: once people forget how serious whooping cough is, they forget how important the vaccination is, leaving everyone vulnerable. We mustn't let this happen with genetic testing - we have to keep talking about our genes and what they can convey. We know about Tay-Sachs, but what of the other, less discussed genetic diseases? The group Jewish Genetics Disorders UK fights hard to keep the dialogue going.

It is crucial that we take control of our future by taking advantage of the screening provision that is on offer and maintaining awareness among the community. These illnesses are our heritage, but they don't have to be our fate.

Dickens’s Jew — from evil to delightful

Charles Drazin — Fri, 03 May 2013 09:40:29 +0100

When David Lean directed Oliver Twist 65 years ago, the character of Fagin had already been long established as a popular villain. There was the serialisation and subsequent editions of Charles Dickens's novel, while the celebrated actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree played the part in a successful stage version in 1905. And there had been many film adaptations. Lon Chaney was Fagin in one of several silent versions; Irving Pichel took on the role in a 1933 sound version.The George Cruikshank drawings, which accompanied the original serialisation, provided a model that made Fagin, with his long beard, hat and notorious, beaked nose, as instantly recognisable a villain as Captain Hook or Dracula.

The crude, racist stereotyping went back to the original conception of the character. When Fagin makes his first appearance, he is described as "a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair". He is then referred to invariably as "the Jew" as though that were the key to his behaviour.

Dickens came to regret this, explaining that, at the time, the kind of criminal he was describing invariably was a Jew, but he was so uncomfortable that he removed many of the references from a later edition. In practice, however, it was no more than a gesture, offering little practical mitigation of the racial slur. A richly dramatic caricature, Fagin lived on into the 20th century as a negative but often revived archetype of Jewishness.

Lean's 1948 adaptation presents Fagin faithfully as the duplicitous criminal of "evil conscience" that Dickens had created. It does not add racist colour that was not already there, yet at the same time gives full weight to a portrait of rare nastiness. Beneath a surface warmth lies utter viciousness. Fagin grooms his young orphans to steal. He seems to offer them sanctuary but in reality condemns them to ruin. In their joint criminal enterprise, even his accomplice Bill Sikes is the victim of Fagin's superior intellect. Sikes steals, Fagin fences; Sikes provides the brawn, Fagin the brains. Although Sikes kills Nancy, it is Fagin who puts him up to it.

In a chilling sequence in the Lean film, which culminates with Nancy's murder, Fagin asks Sikes what he would do if he discovered that the Artful Dodger had "peached" on him. "I'd smash his head in," he says.

Fagin asks what if it were one or other of the boys.

"No matter who, I would do the same." It is only then that he tells Sikes that his girlfriend Nancy has turned informer. The effect is that of unleashing a savage dog.

Lean distilled Dickens's work into brilliantly cinematic images but it was the fidelity of those images to the original racist conception of Fagin that made them especially shocking in the context of the 1940s. The immediate aftermath of the Holocaust might have seemed the time to avoid such a negative stereotype, yet Lean carried on regardless of the consequences.

It wasn't that he hadn't been warned. In May 1947, the Production Code Administration, Hollywood's self-regulatory censorship body, said: "We assume, of course, that you will bear in mind the advisability of omitting from the portrayal of Fagin any elements or inference that would be offensive to any specific racial group or religion. Otherwise, of course, your picture might meet with very definite audience resistance in this country."

Not long after, make-up artist Stuart Freeborn began turning Alec Guinness into Fagin. He recalled that Lean requested two looks: one that followed the Cruikshank drawings, and another toned-down version. In the latter, Fagin "looked like Jesus Christ," remembered Freeborn. "David said: 'Forget that. It's not what we want at all'."

If Lean's instinct overrode a wider awareness, the ivory tower he occupied served only to encourage a blinkered outlook. Around that time, he explained the astonishingly favourable conditions under which the Rank Organisation financed its top producers to make whatever they wanted, how they wanted: "We can cast whatever actors we choose, and we have no interference at all in the way the film is made. No one sees the films until they are finished, and no cuts are made without the consent of the director or producer."

But surviving correspondence from the company's US distributor, Eagle-Lion, reveals that, behind the scenes, Rank was already regretting this set-up. In November 1947, Rank's publicity chief, Jock Lawrence, wrote to the head of Eagle-Lion, Robert Benjamin: "There are such problems… the Jewish one on Oliver Twist is a very serious one. It is something that I will have to show you here, rather than write them in a letter." He must have known that Lean had disregarded the Production Code Administration's advice concerning Fagin.

What made this seem all the more foolhardy was the crisis in Palestine. Lean's Oliver Twist opened in Britain a month after Israel's declaration of independence. Rarely could a première have been so badly timed.

Lawrence derived some comfort from the finished picture, which he saw only days before the première. "I was very happily surprised by the Fagin character," he wrote to Benjamin. "The film itself is so very good that the character of Fagin sinks somewhat into insignificance as compared to the whole. The fidelity of characterisation is such that I believe we have strong grounds for fighting any attacks… There is no doubt in my opinion, however, that the 'lunatic fringe' will attack the film on the basis of Fagin. But… it would not at all be justified except for the unusual length of the character's nose. However, we have it that way, and it is a truly great picture that I believe should overcome any such objections."

Lawrence believed that attacks would be inevitable when the film opened in the US. He suggested that Eagle-Lion delay the release to allow time for the Palestine situation to be settled, so that the film "might not be used by the Zionist groups for propaganda". He suggested, too, that Eagle-Lion's publicity stress the fidelity of the character to the original story. And it seemed to him "doubly important now" to organise a US visit of the child star of the film. "We can, in that way, stress the title Oliver Twist, through the character himself, taking away any attention possible from the Fagin character."

The Rank Organisation settled on a US release of September 1948. Following Lawrence's advice, it arranged a private advance screening for Jewish campaign groups. The reaction was not favourable. The Anti-Defamation League considered the characterisation to be an offensive stereotype that would be harmful in the light of existing tensions. The New York Board of Rabbis went even further, declaring it a "vehicle of blatant antisemitism" that "would play into the hands of un-American elements". It wrote to the president of the Motion Picture Producers Association of America asking that the film be banned. Rather than risk further protests that might jeopardise the company's other prestige releases, Rank postponed the release until a more opportune time.

The film's notoriety made it a magnet for further trouble. When, in February 1949, it opened in the British sector of Occupied Berlin, protesters picketed the theatre. They were mostly Jewish displaced persons, but their anger was shared by many in a city that was trying to recover from the poison of an all-too-recent-past. Berlin's mayor was one of several prominent gentiles to sign a petition that warned of the danger of "arousing antisemitism in Germany", and urged that the film be withdrawn. When the British authorities refused to intervene, the crowds were back the next evening and there were riots in which several were badly hurt. The British military government still stuck to its line that it would not impose a ban but must have been very relieved when Rank decided to withdraw the film.

The question of banning Oliver Twist was an issue that divided even its Jewish critics. The ADL stressed that at no time had it called for a ban, even though it believed events had borne out its warnings about the film's inflammatory nature. The American Council for Judaism condemned outright such calls, arguing that "opinions formed or opposition voiced after the event constituted the proper exercise of public opinion".

The film finally opened in the US in May 1951 after the Production Code Administration granted its seal of approval on the basis of cuts intended "to eliminate wherever possible the photography of the character of Fagin". The New York Times welcomed a sensible compromise: "Except in so far as the appearance of Fagin in point of time has been reduced, his motivating influence and his impact upon the story have been preserved. And that is both just to the purpose of the producers and considerate of those who might take reasonable exception to an excessive portrayal of a stereotyped Jew."

The lesson was that Fagin had to be rehabilitated. When Lionel Bart wrote his musical in 1960, he gave him the heart that was absent in both Lean's film and the novel. Reviewing the situation, Fagin finds it hard "to be really as black as they paint…" With irresistible tunes, the musical provides a lyrical redemption that makes him lovable. It rescues Fagin from the gallows that awaited him in the novel so that, memorably in the 1968 adaptation, he can dance towards a new dawn with the Artful Dodger, Jewish, exotic, other, but delightful.

Polanski's 2005 adaptation did not duck the retribution that faced Fagin but still offered a revisionist version. The novel describes Oliver's new guardian taking him to visit Fagin in prison, to show how he has received his due punishment. Polanski switches the agency for the visit from the adult to the child, who wants to express his gratitude to a man who gave him shelter.

"Fagin, you were kind to me," says Oliver. They hug and Fagin offers a final gesture when he tells him where to find his box of treasures. "It's yours, Oliver, it's yours."

What would Dickens have made of this? Essentially humanist and progressive, I think he would have understood why. But nonetheless he would have regretted the loss of a complex articulation of evil. Such was the price of too easy an acceptance of a racial stereotype.