Colin ShindlerIn writing on the first meeting of the World Council (Veltrat) for Yiddish and Jewish Culture in Jerusalem in August 1976, Jacob Sonntag asked: “What about the outcome of the Conference? Will it have a lasting effect or will it remain an isolated episode in the history of Yiddish? It is difficult to say.” It … Read more
Human Rights was a prominent and much trumpeted feature of the recent Reagan-Gorbachev summit. Many groups openly voiced their grievances in protests and demonstrations, the deposed Boris Yeltsin called for the removal of the conservative Ligachev and Yuli Kosharovsky, the veteran refusenik leader, spoke to millions of American viewers in a live broadcast from the … Read more
Tel Aviv University recently extended an invitation to Aluf Rehavam Ze’evi to lecture on “The freedom of speech and the exchange of populations”. The careful mention of “freedom of speech” in the title indicated the caution and nervousness of the organizers in broaching the long-forbidden subject of deporting the Palestinians en masse. Yet before Ze’evi, … Read more
AT A TIME when British Jews are commemorating the considerable achievements of Israel’s first forty years, some are haunted by the frozen frames of warring children and burning barricades in the Gaza slums. There is the uneasy knowledge that the most advanced military force in the Middle East is using clubs. Truly, the age of … Read more
THE most advanced military force in the Middle East is using clubs,’ remarked Dedi Zucker, an Israeli parliamentarian, recently. For many enlightened Jewish supporters of Israel, the age of innocence is over. The burning barricades and the warring youngsters in the Gaza sIums have clearly concentrated minds on the West Bank. For rears, moderate Israelis … Read more
As a Jewish voter in Mrs Thatcher’s constituency, I found it difficult to recognise myself in Hugo Young’s highly monolithic caricature of British Jews (May 27). He informs me that the leaderene is “an honorary Jew” and that Judaism is an integral basis for Thatcherite philosophy. Our apolitical chief rabbi is elevated to the status … Read more
As a deputy who was unable to attend the last meeting. I find the Board of Deputies statement on the current crisis in Israel and the territories embarrassingly devoid of meaning. It does not address the fundamental issues which have caused the riots and only parrots time-worn slogans which are being rendered increasingly irrelevant. This … Read more
ALL British Jews alive today know that their survival during the Nazi period was determined essentially by geography and little else. Fortunately, the Nazi empire did not expand fast enough or last long enough to realize the finality of the Final Solution. Thus, for those Jews, for whom fate decreed that their forebears would settle … Read more
Anglo-Jewry tends to regard the 1980s as either a mini-renaissance of Jewish culture or the swan-song of a philistine community. Those with an optimistic bent will point to the outstanding East End Festival as evidence of a mini-renaissance. The media coverage and general interest in that festival indicates, above all, that there are many who … Read more
Those readers of THE JEWISH QUARTERLY who had their interest in David Bomberg whetted by the extracts from Richard Cork’s book published in our recent East End issue will be pleased to know that the Tate Gallery is shortly to host a major retrospective of his work. Born in Birmingham in 1890 to Polish-Jewish immigrant … Read more