Oh, those loony Jewish lobby fantasies

Somehow I missed it. Three days after 9/11, the former Private Eye editor, Richard Ingram, wrote in the Observer condemning coverage for missing what he considered to be a crucial point.

More..

Sad shrinking of Europe's Jews

I think I've told readers before that, in many ways, I barely qualify to write this column.

More..

Religion is no cure, but it helps

News of the Bideford prayers ruling reached me in foreign parts, and provoked a regression. It got more pronounced when the other parts of the establishment - the atheist professor, the former archbishop, the Queen (apparently) and the papers joined the debate.

More..

'Zionist' has become a dirty word

The other day, on other pages, I took a blast at the more unlikely supporters of Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul. I wrote what was true, that Paul was part of an extreme isolationist and anti-government tendency on the US right, and one that had flirted extensively with folk possessing dodgy views on questions such as race.

Among the more hostile responses was a common theme.

More..

A worrying choice of words

Last week as he was thinking about his column on Gilad Shalit for The Times, I said to Danny Finkelstein (we were having an Elders cabal over by the book-case), that someone, somewhere was bound to say: "A thousand Palestinians for one Jew! Just shows that they believe a Jewish life is more valuable than an Arab one."

More..

Our Jewish Communist past

While I was in a coma recently, one of the emails that tumbled into my untended inbox was from a Polish friend with whom I'd had a mild falling out a couple of years ago.

More..

Anti-Zionists having a laugh

Unpleasant serendipity. On Monday evening, as I was thinking about this article, I received an email in my Times account from the managing editor of a small book publisher, which she runs from her farm-cum-organic herb business in Wiltshire.

She wanted to know whether I would like to take part in a discussion on "Jewish Identity Politics" with one of her authors.

More..

Conspirers against 'conspirers'

The author and 9/11 conspiracist, Ian Henshall, announced his departure from the big truther's bash on Monday evening, by thrusting his bald head into my face, twice calling me a "f---g scumbag" and then flapping off into the wet night.

More..

What did he hope to achieve?

Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld of New York must be the kind of friend who, when he comes over, people turn off the lights and hide behind the settee until he's gone again. Let me tell you what he did.

More..

Killing children - and peace

The other day I received another invitation to a university debate. The motion was "This House Believes That Israel Asks Too Much And Gives Too Little In The Peace Process" and it was assumed that I would speak in opposition, alongside - maybe - someone from the Israeli Embassy and someone from the Zionist Federation.

More..

Word on the street is… mild

In 2003, a matter of weeks after the fall of Saddam, I went to Cairo to make a programme for Channel 4.

I was apprehensive, not because I was asking about the problem of Middle Eastern antisemitism but because the airwaves and foreign pages had been full of hoary lock-shaking concerning what was universally called "The Arab Street".

TAS (for short) was furious. TAS was potentially violent towards Westerners. It would be best - when encountering TAS - to pretend to be Irish or Patagonian.

More..

How they lost the (Zionist) plot

'See that bird, swooping low over the Arabian desert, my son? Spot that shark swimming the shallows of the Red Sea, beloved daughter? What do they have in common? No, no, no. Not that they're both vertebrates -everyone knows that. No - they're both Mossad agents, my children, that's what."

More..

Collaterally damaged again

I would like to agree with Leeds Jewish Representative Council president Hilton Lorie, quoted on the front page of last week's JC à propos of l'affaire Davis, when he said that wisdom lay in knowing "when to keep shtum". So this is the end of this week's column. Goodbye. . .

Meh - as I gather people say these days. I am neither by profession nor inclination a shtum-keeper.

More..

Spurs and their missing stars

For many North Londoners, Wednesday night was the biggest event since the Stones hit Hyde Park in '69. The mighty Spurs in the top European competition for the first time for two generations, and playing Inter Milan (not Dinamo Cluj or FC Basel) in the fabled San Siro stadium. What romance! What soccerly riches!

More..

Idling and ignorant in Italy

I write in a state of Jewlessness. In this small, southern seaside resort at the fag-end of the Italian national holiday season, there have been no Jews visible for over a week.

We are not talking here just about no bearded, hatted, kippah-ed, sidelocked, bewigged and Volvoed Jews. That can sometimes happen in parts of London.

More..