It is Jonathan Sacks’s destiny to inhabit several disparate worlds. Sacks is the scholarly British chief rabbi who heads the United Hebrew Congregations of the UK and the British Commonwealth Controversy seems to stalk him. His latest imbroglio relates to the republication of The Dignity of Difference, Sacks’s most recent book – ostensibly an Orthodox … Read more
‘One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate’ by Tom Segev, translated by Haim Watzman, published by Little Brown and Co., pp 612 Tom Segev writes good books – and this is no exception. Their structure is a hybrid between academic endeavour and journalistic seduction. The outcome is a raising from … Read more
Christopher Hitchens’ articles in the Evening Standard, Barbara Amiel’s reply in the Daily Telegraph and Malcolm Palmer’s reply in the last issue of LJN all show a highly selective reading of the history of the Revisionist Zionist movement and its main characters, Jabotinsky and Begin. Barbara Amiel was right to condemn Christopher Hitchen’s depiction … Read more
The Embarrassment of Zionism As the conference season swings into top gear, there is a plethora of motions condemning the Sharon government. The TUC recently called for probable sanctions against Israel and the Labour Party will follow suit. Yet many Israelis also believe that Sharon has no peace plan and no vision of … Read more
The files just released by the Public Records Office under the 30 year rule indicate that the Government of Edward Heath was unnerved by the possibility of disruptive Jewish demonstrations of cultural events and political visits by Soviet glitterati. Downing Street was quite taken aback in particular at the conveyor belt demonstrations staged by the … Read more
One trenchant critic privately — and pejoratively – refers to him as ‘Jonathan Henry’. Read the ultra-orthodox press in the United States and he is transformed into `Yonoson’. These different labels symbolise the different worlds which the British Chief Rabbi — Professor Jonathan Sacks of the United Hebrew Congregations of the United Kingdom and … Read more
Recent Israeli opinion polls consistently allocate 62 – 64 seats in the 120-seat Knesset to a coalition of the governing Likud, the far right and the religious parties in the forthcoming elections at the end of January Any potential governing group must attain a minimum blocking majority of sixty-one seats in order to secure … Read more
The Times and “Englishness” In May 1784, John Walter, a bankrupted Lloyds underwriter wrote to is patron, Benjamin Franklin, the American Minister in pre-revolutionary Paris, to inform him that he intended to publish a newspaper. On 1 January 1785, Walter’s project appeared as The Daily Universal Register. Three years later, the title was changed … Read more
A Dissenting Democracy: The Israeli Movement ‘Peace Now’ By Magnus Norell, published by Frank Cass , London 2002, 160 pp On the eve of Netanyahu’s election defeat in 1999, the British Friends of Peace Now hosted a public meeting in London at which a former Israeli Ambassador to the Court of St. James … Read more
The case of Israeli academic Oren Yiftachel (It’s water on stone – in the end the stone wears out, G2, December 12) is a good example of how the British left not only attacks the Sharon government, but actually aids it in victimising Israeli peace campaigners – many of whom are academics. The leadership of … Read more