Your enemy’s enemy is your friend?

I came across this YouTube video about the rise in Anti-Semitism in the UK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvH4jzO2PDo

After relating a number of cases where Jews had suffered attacks at the hands of Muslims it then tells us that Jews have actually started to leave Britain because of the surge in these attacks by Muslims.


It then made my jaw drop.


The video continues that if we want to reverse this trend and “stop the anti-Semitic madness” then we needed to vote BNP!

I’m puzzled. Are the BNP saying that their attempts at throwing the Jews out of Britain in the 1970s were misguided and in fact British fascists should now love and protect British Jews? Can you imagine? The British fascist skinheads standing shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community!  Men with Swastika tattoos standing outside London shuls, guarding the Jews from attacks?




Flag of St George alongside the Israeli Flag
at a counter demonstation against Anti Israel demonstrations in London 2010



Vote for the fascist British National Party to protect Britain’s Jews?

Your enemy’s enemy is your friend?

I don’t think so!

If it’s come to this dear Anglo Jewry, isn't it time you came home to Israel?




Yes! We play cricket in Israel as well.



The Telegraph kind of apologises for earlier Dog Stoning Report

Kol HaKavod to the Telegraph for (as I stated in an earlier post) removing the original “Rabbis sentenced dog to death” story and now today, for printing a correction.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/8588536/Israel-dog-stoning-reports-strongly-denied.html

The only criticism I would make is regarding the headline.

The term “Strongly Denied” is not correct seeing as the Israeli newspapers that originally published this work of fiction have now admitted that the story was a pack of lies and issued an unreserved apology for what amounts to a blood libel. The BBC and Telegraph would not have dared publish this lie had they not already been given immunity from accusations of anti-Semitism by the anti-religious Israeli press who printed it first.

Instead the headline should have read "Israel Do Stoning Report turns out to be false" or something similer.
The Telegraph quotes the Beis Din in Yerushalayim (The Jerusalem Rabbical court) as saying:

A court statement said: "There is no basis for stoning dogs or any other animal in the Jewish religion, not since the days of the Temple or Abraham.

“The female dog found a seat in the corner of the court. And the children were delighted by it; there were hundreds outside the court. They are used to seeing stray cats but most have never seen a dog before. The only action we took was to dial the number of the Jerusalem Municipality to get the people in charge to take it away.

“There was no talk of reincarnation, a lawyer has never been mentioned, either now or 20 years ago, and there was no stoning. Such inventions are a kind of blood libel, and we wonder why the inventor of the story did not continue to describe how we collected the blood of the dog to make our matzah.”

YNET and Maariv newspapers give honour to the memory of Der Stürmer

I’ve written in the past on my blog about how the secular press in Israel never let a week go by without printing articles full of hatred towards religious Jews, which had they been printed in any gentile paper would be considered anti-Semitic.

Well with this article, the Israeli mainstream press has reached a new low. It was first published in Maariv and YNET and was so good that it was picked up by the World Press as too good a story to be passed by. Of course, the world press had been given a free pass to print this hate fest against religious Jews because their source was the Israeli media and everyone knows that Israeli secular Jews cannot be anti-Semitic can they? The Israeli Press have excelled themselves this time.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4082843,00.html

Notice the sidebar link to another wonderful article entitled “Why the Rabbis Are Hated”. Don’t YNET realise that they’re reinventing the wheel? This type of incitement to hatred has already been published in the last century by the National Socialist Party in Germany as well as other Nazi Organisations around the world. I’m sure YNET can save themselves a lot of money by simply translating into Ivrit some of Der Stürmer’s most juiciest articles about big nosed evil Rabbis and Orthodox Jews.

The BBC, TIME Magazine, The Daily Telegraph amongst others all republished this story, taken from the English version of YNET.

Well it turns out that this article was not just a distortion of facts, the story was actually a pack of lies from beginning to end, a piece of fanciful invention, a secular fantasy penned by the Israeli reporter. The reporter would have made any Der Sturmer Propaganda writer proud. Kol HaKavod! You will go far in Israeli journalism.

Maariv later published an apology but of course the damage has already been done and the fire of Anti-Semitism has been fanned throughout the world by these self-hating Israelis.

There is however no sign of a correction, let alone an apology from YNET as yet.

The BBC also published a correction and The Telegraph had the decency to be shamed into removing the page from its site altogether after the whole story was found to be a lie.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/8583317/Jewish-court-sentences-dog-to-death-by-stoning.html

The Whisky Boycott. More thoughts.

Chivas Regal. Israeli's favourite
Duty Free Whisky

I had an interesting conversation about the Whisky Boycott on Shabbos with a Rav who lives in my local area. (He incidentally enjoys a large Glen Fiddich on occasions).

He made some good points I felt. I had expressed my view that I wasn’t convinced that the distilleries should be boycotted just because they were situated within authourity of anti-Semitic councils, especially being that many of them were doing so much to obtain kashrus certificates and some even had commercial interests with Israel (buying Israeli kosher wine casks), thus implying that they were not pursuing anti-Semitic or Anti-Israel policies themselves. Perhaps we would actually lose any friends we might have in Scotland by boycotting their whisky.

He counted this by asking me how I proposed to make the councils change their policies without hitting them where it hurts the most, that is, in the pocket. He asked me if Scotland produced anything else of significance besides whisky that we could boycott. If the distilleries begin to feel the loss of sales then they will put pressure on the councils to reverse their immoral policies. However, he went on to say that he didn’t see any point in boycotting Single Malts as they were too expensive for most drinkers which meant that the market was too small to make any noticeable impact. (I’m not sure he is correct here). He suggested that the boycott be on all blended Scotch whisky and not exclusively on whiskies in the council’s area but to all Scottish blended whisky. (From my experience, most Israelis, for reasons that escape me, buy Chivers Regal). This he said would express in the strongest terms, our view on the Scottish boycott of Israel.

Scotch Blends

I then made a rather flippant comment to the effect that I might well subscribe to his suggestion being that I could still be able to enjoy my Single Malts. I immediately angered an elderly gentleman who said that I sounded like those American Jews in the 1930s who refused to join the German boycott due to their love of German products. He told me that had the German boycott been effective then this would have probably changed the whole course of history.

What do you think?

The Great Whisky Boycott Debate

A lot has been said and written about a threatened whisky boycott by the Jewish world due to the Anti-Zionist policies of the Scottish Nationalist Socialist West Dunbartonshire council and in particular, the anti-Semitic comments of one communist racist council member, Jim Bollan.

Report: Scottish boycott leader defends Fogel killers
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4080433,00.html

Scottish councilor: Hamas are freedom fighters
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4077577,00.html

Scotland: Glasgow districts boycott Israeli books
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4073097,00.html

The Conservative and Reform Movements

I noticed that the call to boycott has been taken up by The Reform and Conservative Masorti movements Kiddush clubs. Considering the Reform and Conservative’s poor record of support for Israel in the past, it does leave me slightly puzzled.

The Conservative/Masorti as well as the Reform movements are involved in many left wing pro-Palestinian organisations such as the grotesquely named “Rabbis For Human Rights” organisation. This organisation in particular thinks it’s the “Jewish way” to demand the dismantling of Army checkpoints and the security fences which have saved numerous Jewish lives. Their misplaced and corrupted sense of morality gives aid to Israel’s enemies.

See article in Haaretz for example:

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/conservative-rabbis-demand-colleagues-quit-rabbis-for-human-rights-1.69207

The idea of a boycott

The boycott idea seems to have originated from the pro Zionist blog Muqata. I am very uncomfortable about this boycott for a number of reasons.

Before I begin I feel it’s only fair to say that I’m not objective in this issue as I love Scotland, having visited there many times and am crazy about Single Malt Whisky so confess a bias from the start.

I wrote to the Muqata blog today and am waiting for an answer to my question as to why the blog’s owner selected these whisky companies for a boycott. Muqata kindly published my comment here:

http://muqata.blogspot.com/2011/05/official-scotch-whisky-counter-boycott.html

As I explained in my comment post on the blog, the headquarters of Morrison Bowmore are in Glasgow city centre and Bowmore distillery is on the Isle of Islay. The same company however does own a distillery in West Dunbartonshire called Auchintoshan. I'll give them that one.

By the way, until a few years ago, Morrison Bowmore's Computer department head was an Orthodox Jew who had served in the IDF! The company is very much involved in kosher whisky production and possible batches of kosher wine casks in cooperation with Israeli vineyards. Any Whisky company that works directly with Israeli companies (such as Bruichladdich of Islay) should certainly not be on the boycott. (Personally speaking, I'd recommend not drinking Bowmore anyway as its pretty awful stuff. However Glen Garioch and Auchintoshan are quite good).

The Glenlivet distillery is in the Speyside region and is owned by Chivas Brothers whose headquarters are in Paisley which is in the council area of Renfrewshire which is south of West Dunbartonshire. Why the boycott on them?

The third company on the list is Loch Lomond. Loch Lomond's headquarters and distillery are in Alexandria which is within the Strathclyde Regional Council. So why boycott them?

I do think though, that with enough pressure on Morrison Bowmore, they might be willing to make a public statement condemning their own council’s policy. It would certainly endear them to the many whisky drinkers within Am Yisrael and probably increase their sales.

What would Purim be like without a Chumantashen with a glass of Auchintoshan?

Ella Valley wines review

In this blog I review two wines from the Ella Valley winery.

Ella Valley Pinot Noir 2005 NIS 119
Ella Valley Chardonnay 2007 NIS 69

See my Review blog here:

http://rebmordechaireviews.blogspot.com/2011/06/ella-valley-wines.html

Gvaot Herodion Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 and Domain Netofa Rose 2009

I have a new blog post on two lovely wines from small Israeli wineries here on my Review blog:

Enjoy! Click on the link below.

http://rebmordechaireviews.blogspot.com/2011/06/gvaot-herodion-cabernet-sauvignon-2009.html