This absurd character with horn-rimmed glasses, beside whom James Bond becomes a flavourless creation. He does not shoot, nor use his fists, nor leap from speeding automobiles like James Bond, but he advises on wars, ends wars, pretends to change our destiny and does change it. So wrote the Italian writer, Oriana Fallaci, over 50 … Read more
From Red Terror to Terrorist State: Russia’s Intelligence Services and their Fight for World Domination by Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Popov, Gibson Square 2023, “Russia is a strange country in which illegitimate power is best seized through lawful elections.” This comment from the Russian secret service historian Yuri Felshtinsky and former KGB lieutenant-colonel Vladimir Popov, pierces the veneer … Read more
The history of Cuba and its Jews has always been a fascinating but under-researched subject. Tropical Diaspora: The Jewish Experience in Cuba by historian Robert M. Levine is a comprehensive and absorbing account of the travails of Cuban Jews. The first Jews to arrive in Cuba were those escaping the heavy hand of the Spanish … Read more
This Friday marks the start of the Jewish New Year, a time to reflect on the passing year and voice aspirations for the one coming. The central concern for many British Jews this year will be the deep division in Israel over the government’s “judicial reform” which removes the checks and balances that preserve an … Read more
A few weeks ago, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research in the UK published a report entitled, “What do Jews in the UK think about Israel’s leaders and its future?” Comparable to Australia’s Crossroads23 demographic analysis, its authors, Jon Boyd and Carli Lessof, honed in on Jewish attitudes towards Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the “judicial reform” controversy. … Read more
Seventy years ago, in June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were electrocuted at Sing-Sing prison in New York — 15 minutes before Shabbat began out of respect for Jewish tradition. It is an anniversary that Jewish organisations in the Diaspora have chosen to ignore — and one that they may not wish to be reminded … Read more
It is now 500 days since Vladimir Putin launched his war against the civilian population of Ukraine, days that have been peppered with anti-Jewish comments and imagery. In a search for a scapegoat for last week’s mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenaries, Putin looked back into Russian history and repeated the … Read more
Last week, Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin, celebrated his 53rd birthday in Ramon prison. He has spent more of his life behind bars than in freedom. He has served more time in prison than Nelson Mandela in apartheid South Africa and, unlike most Israelis sentenced to life imprisonment, it is highly unlikely his … Read more
Coronations are a time for celebration and contemplation since they connect all citizens with their own family history, stretching back through time. Yet Jews have a complex relationship with monarchy. As the rabbi tells Tevye and Leibesh in Fiddler on the Roof: ‘God bless the Tsar – and keep him far away from us!’ The … Read more
One year ago, the world awoke to the news that war had broken out in Europe after almost 80 years of relative peace. British Jews were stunned by this turn of events — especially those whose ancestors had escaped Tsarist persecution in Ukraine. For Putin, the fall of the USSR in 1991 — like the … Read more