Letters to the Editor November 28 2025

Today’s world is unfortunately one where fundamentalist readings and extremism do not just mean groups fill placards with prophecies of Armageddon. It means they actively mobilise in violence against Jews and Israel in an all too real way. We have a right to protest against that.

Hopefully, an end to the polarised, extremist world we reside in today, with more dialogue, will be nigh.

Shimon Cohen

London N2 0AH

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Apartheid lies

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I was pleased to read Gary Cohen’s article on the falsehood of using the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza. There is of course a second libel which the world’s media are happy to accept, the labelling of Israel as an “apartheid state”.

Like many English Jews, I have visited Israel several times and have cousins who live there. But I also had first-hand experience of South African apartheid in the 1960s and find it a gross insult, both to the black and brown people of South Africa who were forced to endure apartheid, and to Israel, to use that word in this context. Just like genocide, it is an insulting distortion of the truth which the world’s media and many statesmen have been happy to use.

Under apartheid, African, Asian, and people of mixed race had to live in separate designated areas. They could not mix openly with white people, could not do the jobs reserved for white people, (even lorry driving, a white driver would often have a black “lorry boy” perhaps twice his age, to load and unload) could not use whites-only hospitals, schools, universities, had separate counters at post offices and many shops, could not sit with white people in buses, trains, cinemas, even park benches. To be out of their “locations” in the evening, they needed a pass signed by their employer.

Inter marriage, voting, taking part in government, was of course out of the question, and there were many more restrictions, all designed to ensure the black and coloured population remained an underclass, while the white South Africans did as they pleased. Not surprising then, that the system was eventually overturned. If Israel operated as an apartheid state, with rules and regulations as above, then their Arab residents would be right to revolt. The fact that none of the above restrictions occur in Israel simply shows that to call it an apartheid State is a baseless insult.

The world’s media needs to know that Israel’s Arab citizens live a full life without restrictions.

Johnny Gumb,

London N1

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A true mitzvah

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It would have been far more memorable if London Mayor Sadiq Khan, instead of posing for a photo call packing kosher meals for the 20th anniversary of Mitzvah Day, had sent the far-left “Palestine” hate-marchers packing. Now that would have been a real mitzvah.

Jeremy Zeid

Harrow

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Yente yanter

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I see the Russian spy ship posed around Scotland is called “The Yanter.”
I wondered if the name was derived from the Yiddish word “Yenta “ which meant a nosy, interfering and meddlesome gossip?

Barrington Black

London NW3

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Nice Rice 

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As always, a witty and erudite column from Maureen Lipman. But how on earth could she have omitted Tim Rice from her piece?

Not only is Rice arguably the greatest living non-Jewish lyricist, but as one of the earliest signatories to the UK Friends of Israel’s October Declaration that was published shortly after the horrors of October 7th, he is also a mensch.

Jonathan Baz

Northwood

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Purley king​

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I would be interested if there are any readers who recall being members of the Coulsdon and Purley Jewish Society as my late father Dr Simon Davis was treasurer (noch!).

Neil Davis

Hampstead