The outgoing Jewish year, 5755 has been punctuated by many events to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of the Third Reich. The return of old soldiers to the Normandy beaches last summer through to the VE celebrations outside Buckingham Palace were occasions to recapture history. It reminded us that Jews are required to … Read more
This first issue of Judaism Today appears – ironically – in the aftermath of the Chief Rabbi’s criticism of the Masorti movement’s modus operandi within Anglo-Jewry. A nerve was touched and heat flowed. Despite the acres of coverage in the Jewish press and beyond, little light was shed on the important issues. Indeed, the epicentre … Read more
Some British rabbis believed the peace process to be responsible for the recent massacre of worshippers in Hebron. The tension amongst the settlers, they argued, had pushed Baruch Goldstein over the edge. The situation was to blame. In this way, they shifted any moral consideration from themselves and were able to circumvent condemnation of the … Read more
In a recent article in the London Review of Books, Edward Said passionately condemned the Israel-PLO Accord as “an instrument of Palestinian capitulation, a Palestinian Versailles”. Said emotionally dismantled the Accord and found little of value. “A century of sacrifice, dispossession and heroic struggle”, he wrote, “had finally come to nought”. Said gloomily accentuated the … Read more
The war in Bosnia has shown that aggression does pay. Under the terms of the Geneva Agreement, the Serbian nationalists together with their Croatian accomplices have been satisfied in their demand for land and power. Bosnia, as we knew it eighteen months ago, no longer exists. Yet Sarajevo seems to have survived that evil bombardment—as … Read more
In the winter of 1954, Jacob Sonntag edited a special issue of THE JEWISH QUARTERLY—number seven—which was devoted to an examination of the youthful State of Israel. Looking back at it, after nearly four decades, from the heights of our 150th issue, that passion for the Zionist experiment and the seemingly timeless freshness of statehood … Read more
A crisis in Israel’s ruling coalition was always a distinct possibility, ever since prime minister Yitzhak Rabin persuaded the secular Meretz and the religious Shas parties to join his Labour-led government But now the strains are beginning to show. Shas, together with other religious parties, has been calling for the dismissal of Shulamit Aloni, the … Read more
On first reading, the ruling by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, legitimizing women’s prayer groups, seems to be an important step forward for large numbers of orthodox women. He has acknowledged the growing demand from Jewish women for a more authentic framework for spiritual expression. It is also abundantly clear from his consensual statement that … Read more
Yitzhak Rabin’s offer to allow 100 deported Palestinians to return from their freezing camp in Lebanon was the result of pressure, not just from the Clinton administration, but from within his own cabinet. With hindsight, dovish ministers in the Labour-led coalition regarded the deportation of more than 400 Hamas supporters as an incredible blunder. … Read more
Five hundred years ago, the Jews of Catholic Spain were expelled from their homeland by the practitioners of a religious fanaticism who believed that they had God on their side. The talents and contributions of minorities, whether Jewish or Muslim, were unwanted in a religiously pure Iberia. Those Jews who did not prostrate themselves before the priests of Ferdinand and Isabella left to seek new … Read more