Isaac, Jacob, Moses — and Ed

Journalism is a competitive business but sometimes the competition comes from a wholly unexpected source. I'd planned a while ago to write in this slot about the Jewishness of Ed Miliband. Little did I know that the latest edition of the New Statesman, a special on British Jewish life published on Thursday, would carry a column on the same topic - written by Ed Miliband.

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Beinart is not our wicked son

You're probably exhausted. Attending, let alone hosting, two Seders will do that to a person. You've packed away the Haggadot by now and won't be in the mood for a reminder. But forgive one more mention of the Four Sons (or Four Children, for those whose Seder is a tad more right-on).

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If Auschwitz was in Hampshire

The shock comes in the very first line.

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Good to talk? Useful, anyway

First, I should declare an interest. I am a friend and admirer of Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, leader of Britain's Masorti movement. But I also like and admire the JC's political editor, Martin Bright.

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Europe's Jews need this union

There's one number you won't find in the torrent of opinion polls unleashed by David Cameron's European summit veto.

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This is Israel? Not the one I love

All credit to Israel's friends in the British Jewish community: they are nothing if not energetic. A matter of months after they gathered for BICOM's We Believe in Israel rally in London, they are now erecting a Big Tent for Israel in Manchester. According to an ad for a spin-off event, once again the focus will be the "delegitimisation of Israel".

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Say (cottage) cheese and smile

Call it the cottage cheese revolution. The protest movement that has convulsed Israel these past few months began with a Facebook campaign to lower the price of the white stuff. Furious at being overcharged, Israelis stopped buying this staple of the national diet - forcing the dairy companies to slash the price.

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Legislators against free speech

An old song has been coming back to me, one I learned back in my youth movement days. Perhaps it's in my mind because, last week, I packed off my eldest son to his first summer camp.

The song is Gesher Tzar Me'od (A Very Narrow Bridge) and it resonates now because that is where I feel I stand - on a very narrow bridge, getting narrower by the day.

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A glaring glut of own goals

Israel's new ambassador to Britain, Daniel Taub, is not just British-born: he grew up steeped in communal life. He will, therefore, already be familiar with the lament he will hear every day from the moment he steps off the plane at Heathrow until he finally heads back home: "Why does Israel have such bad public relations?"

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Cheers won't quell the fears

It's now a cinematic cliché. You know the scene: high-society types are quaffing champagne or dancing the foxtrot, while outside a revolution is brewing. Those on the inside remain in a cosy bubble of complacency, unaware of the storm about to hit them.

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Attacked by single-view mobs

Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?

Can you do - or think - two things at once? I only ask because I am beginning to wonder if it's a rarer feat than I'd realised.

Here is what I have in mind. Last week, I wrote a column in the Guardian about the Goldstone affair, triggered by the semi-retraction that the South African judge had delivered a few days earlier.

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Are Arabs the new Zionists?

Long after his death, the wisdom of Abba Eban lives on - no nugget more frequently dug up than his observation that "the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."

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McCarthyism - Israeli style

'An evil wave is sweeping over Israel" and the latest act of the Knesset "sends a warning signal: here is darkness."

Before you dash off a letter to denounce the authors of those words as hateful anti-Zionists bent on delegitimising the state of Israel, pause a moment. Because the first quotation comes from the Kadima leader Tzipi Livni and the second from Likud MK Benny Begin. What could have moved such fervent Israeli patriots to speak this way?

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Misplaced shots at true Zionist

Nearly a month has passed and the fallout keeps falling. The episode that future historians of Anglo-Jewry will surely dub "The Mick Davis Affair" goes on and on, as supporters and critics of the chairman of the UJIA argue ferociously about his right to speak, his motives and his judgment following the remarks he made about Israel and the diaspora at a public meeting in London in mid-November.

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Allow our artists Leigh way

Last week saw two Manchester Jewish titans of the arts of near-identical vintage get two very different responses from our community.

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