Colin Shindler“A GOOD opportunity”, “a new mood since the Gulf war”, “a tragedy to let this opportunity slip” — such was the official phraseology of the Board of Deputies of British Jews on the prospect of an international . peace conference on the Middle East. The comments could be construed as merely a public-relations exercise … Read more
IMAGINE A MILLION Catholics moving to Northern Ireland in the space of a few years—or the influx of a million Protestants. The social changes and the inter-communal problems arising would easily fill a book. In the Middle East, such a migration is no fantasy: 75,000 Soviet Jews emigrated to Israel in the first five months … Read more
THE END OF EMPIRE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Glen Balfour-Paul Cambridge University Press, £30 UNHOLY BABYLON: THE SECRET HISTORY OF SADDAM’S WAR. Adel Darwish and Gregory Alexander Gollancz, £9.99 HOLY WAR FOR THE PROMISED LAND. David Dolan Hodder & Stoughton, £4.99 TERROR. Conor Gearty Faber & Faber, £12.99 The establishment of a pax britannica … Read more
It is, of course, wrong to speak ill of the dead—but there are exceptions. For many Jews, the life and times of Rabbi Meir Kahane were not a cause for celebration. Indeed, the bitterness which he aroused in many seemed to feed his need to achieve a self-perpetuating urge to self-destruction. Shortly after Kahane’s murder … Read more
When the scale of the defeat of the Iraqi forces in the Gulf War became apparent, there was a sense of quiet satisfaction in some Jewish quarters that the case for Israel was now fully recognized by the West. The Palestinians in the Territories had frittered away all their hard-won support by their emotional outpourings … Read more
Proud, but invisible A SENSE OF BELONGING: DILEMMAS OF BRITISH JEWISH IDENTITY Howard Cooper and Paul Morrison Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £16 Colin Shindler British Jews have that sense of oneness, often admired and sometimes resented, which appears as an impregnable fortress of indefinable purpose. The authors of this book of a new Channel 4 series … Read more
Jacob Frank will always be remembered as one of the most frightening phenomena in Jewish history: a religious leader who, whether for purely self-interested motives or otherwise, was in all his actions a truly corrupt and degenerate individual. So wrote one of the greatest Jewish scholars of our time, Gershom Scholem—and it can be stated … Read more
The security of the State of Israel is the central psychological factor which governs the approach of the ordinary citizen to the Palestinian problem. But how is national security interpreted? Does control over the West Bank and its inhabitants increase Israel’s national security or does it ultimately endanger the existence of the Jewish state? If … Read more
In a few weeks, the triennial election for the Presidency of the Board of Deputies of British Jews will be upon us. For many, it will be an occasion of numbing irrelevance despite the quality of the candidates. The current state of the Board is deeply depressing for all committed and concerned British Jews. And … Read more
To judge by the noises of horror that greeted the appointment of Rehavam Ze’evi to the Israeli cabinet, one would imagine that the ideas he stands for—most notably, “transfer” of Palestinians out of the Occupied Territories—were outside the bounds of decent opinion. Even the defence minister, Moshe Arens, a prominent figure on the Israeli right, … Read more