LBC's Iain Dale and his knowledge of Judaism

I was listening to the Iain Dale show on LBC (London Talkback) radio last night. The show started off talking about cults and then somehow switched to discussing the Anglo Jewish community. It would have been amusing had it not been so tragic with such dangerous consequences. The untruths which were spouted out about Judaism on his programme went completely unchallenged.

Iain asked his listeners a question. How many Jews live in Britain? He then added that no one would believe it when he told them!  Iain eventually gave a figure of around 266,000 and remarked that the Jews certainly punch above their weight. I wasn’t sure what he meant by this. Was he saying that the amount of Jews who contribute to British society is way out of promotion to the percentage of the UK population (Less than one half of one percent), or was he saying that for a tiny minority, they have an incredible amount of power and influence? Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and believe he meant the former.

A caller called Keith came on and said that he was from “Jewish extraction” (whatever that means?) and said that although there were “officially” 170,000 Jews, this figure was a count of only Jews who had registered with a synagogue and,  most importantly, this figure did not include (and I quote) – “The Ashkenazis” (who I understood by his comment, were not real Jews!). If you counted them, he informed us, then there were around two and a half million!

He went on to say that he couldn’t believe in a religion that believed that the world was created in seven (sic) days. "Don't get me wrong!", he said, he wasn’t against Judaism or Jews and proved it by saying that he had recently gone to his friend’s Chanukah party which he explained was the commemoration of G-d creating the world in 8 days (sic)!

Iain seemed fascinated by his caller's "knowledge" and seemed to accept everything he said as fact without confirmation or challenge.
 

I had had enough. I immediately fired off an email via the LBC web site on my mobile phone explaining why Keith was talking total and utter nonsense. I have no idea if Iain even read my email as he never mentioned it during the show and I did not get a reply.

 

These were the points I made:

The Jewish population of the UK
 

The Jewish population includes both Sefardi and Ashkenazi Jews.

If we discount those people who wrote round that they were Jewish despite not being so according to Halacha (Jewish Law) and count in those who by choice chose not to answer the Census question on Religion I would guess that the figure would come to around 300,000 Jews left in Britain.

According to Institute for Jewish Policy Research UK, www.jpr.org.uk/) there are around 270,000 Jews who identify themselves as Jewish living in the UK. Most of these, (with the exception of the Orthodox Jewish community), it claims will more likely than not see their children marry non-Jews. The Institute estimates that there were some 450,000 to 500,000 Jews in the Britain around the 1950s.

Chanukah

Chanukah is the commemoration of the civil war and the victory by the Jews of Israel who remained loyal to G-d and His Torah against the Jews who had adopted Greek culture, during the second Temple period. However, most Jewish children in the UK are taught that it was a war between the Jews of Israel and the Greeks invaders in order to avoid the painful issue of secular verses religious Jews.

Therefore, the vast majority of British Jews do not learn beyond kindergarten level Judaism and therefore would not know anything about the civil war. However The Talmud, tractate Shabbat 42-43 states it openly.
 

The Age of the World

The estimate that the world is millions of years old is totally compatible with Torah Judaism. It is the fundamentalist Xtians who absurdly interpret their Xtian Bibles literally, despite the text which they are relying upon having gone through numerous mistranslations(sometimes unintentional, others intentional) from Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, German and various English versions.

It is quite ridiculous to assume that the word “day” in the context of Bereishis (the Genesis) story means a period of 24 hours or even a single night and day period when you consider that the sun was not created until the fourth day!

The Hebrew word used in the Bereishis story is “Yom”. The word consists of three letters. A Yud, Vav and Mem.  The Yud is a tiny vertical line. The Vav is a larger vertical line. The Mem is completed box, the same height as the Vav. Its true meaning is expressed in its graphical format. Tiny, larger and completed. In other words, a process of creation. The word “Yom” simply means an unspecified period of creation.

יום

Another “Jewish” (I use the term lightly) caller phoned in and said that he was very proud that all his family celebrated Xmas, his daughter had married a Buddhist and his son a Xtian. Iain Dale praised him for his open mindedness. The caller remarked that he assumed that the quoted figure of UK Jews was very low due to assimilation or moving to Israel and he would guess that it had been a lot larger at one time. Iain replied that he would check but he was sure that the Jewish population of Jews in Britain had remained steady for generations.

I found Iain Dale’s complete ignorance when it came to Jews and their beliefs staggering and deeply troubling. If this is what the cream of British intelligencer believe then it shows a frightening ignorance of who Jews are and what they believe in, within mainstream Britain which profoundly effects its views not only of local Jewish issues, but also its views of Israel and our historical and religious right to the Land of Israel.

*** UPDATE ***

I received a reply from Iain Dale the next morning:

Rob
Thanks for this. I don't think I ever professed to have any great knowledge of Judaism! In the new year we will be doing an hour every Wednesday looking at different religions.

Kind regards

Iain

Well, at least he read the email.
 

Answering the Lies. What every Jew should know.

"From the river to the sea..."

 

Addressing a crowd in Gaza on 14 December, Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said,

"Today, we say, in a clear and unambiguous fashion: the armed resistance and armed struggle are our strategic choice and our path to liberate the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, and to drive the usurping invaders out of the blessed land of Palestine."

He added, "The fact that Hamas, at one stage or another, accepts the goal of gradual liberation - of Gaza, of the West Bank, or of Jerusalem - is not at the expense of our strategic vision with regard to the land of Palestine."

 

Lie: Israel intentionally targeted civilians.

(IDF statistics)

·         177 Palestinians were killed in Operation Pillar of Defence.

·         120 were ‘engaged in terrorist activity’ and 57 civilian deaths.

·         That total is a tiny number of deaths from 1500 air strikes.

·         A ratio of more than two terrorists for every civilian killed.

·         Afghanistan ratio was 3 civilians for every one combatant killed.

·         Iraq ratio 4 civilians for every one combatant killed.

This is a staggering feat of precision the Israelis achieved.

This is even more astonishing given that the Hamas situated their rockets and ammunitions in the middle of civilian areas in order to get its own people killed to score propaganda points.

There is a whole army department whose job it is to warn Palestinians of an impending attack. Amongst other things, they phone families in surrounding buildings of a target and warn them to evacuate. No other army does this.

 

 

Lie: There is a cycle of violence which only Israel can stop.

Hamas attacks are not caused by ‘frustration with the blockade’. The blockade is only there because of the murderous attacks by the Palestinians.

The cycle is only driven by one side. There is Palestinian aggression and Israeli defence and prevention!

 

Lie: All the Palestinians want is a state of their own.

The media fail to understand that the real goal of the Palestinian rulers is not the establishment of a viable independent state but the destruction of Israel.

Even a cursory investigation would prove this:

• Palestinian media outlets shout out this message every day.
• Official public recognition for terrorists who murdered Jewish civilians as national heroes.
• Religious leaders on public radio and TV preach hatred and incite to murder on a daily basis.
• Palestinian schools teach this as well as children’s TV.
• They define occupied land as the whole of Israel, not just “The West Bank”.

 

Just a search in YouTube for “Palestinian media watch”

Go to Palwatch.com

 

Lie: There is an Israeli Blockade which is starving the Palestinian people.

·         No one ever talks about the Egyptian border! The media forgets that there are in fact two borders. It is Egypt which keeps its border with Gaza sealed not allowing any aid, yet turns a blind eye to a free flow of weapons being smuggled in over the border.

Mysteriously the Hamas isn’t firing rockets at Cairo!

·         Israel only restricts certain goods from coming in on security grounds.

·         Israel not only allows in a huge amount of humanitarian and medical supplies each and every day, it provides a large percentage of that aid itself.

·         Most importantly however, Israel insures a two way free flow of trade goods 24 hours a day.

·         Due to signed trade agreements, Israel is the biggest buyer of Palestinian exports.

Look at YouTube videos showing Palestinian markets and shopping centres, restaurants and cafes.

 

Lie: The core obstacle to ME peace is the illegal Jewish Settlements on Palestinian land.

The core obstacle to peace between Israel and any Arab nation is the Arab’s refusal to recognise the State of Israel as a Jewish State. There will never be peace so long as the central policy of the Palestinian rulers is not the establishment of a Palestinian state with peaceful borders (as the world media keeps telling you) but the destruction of the State of Israel.

Note also that the central goals of both the Palestinian Authority and Chamas are the same.

Even a cursory investigation would prove this:

• Palestinian media outlets shout out this message every day.
• Official public recognition for terrorists who murdered Jewish civilians as national heroes.
• Religious leaders on public radio and TV preach hatred and incite to murder on a daily basis.
• Palestinian schools teach this as well as children’s TV.
• They define occupied land as the whole of Israel, not just “The West Bank”.

 

Just a search in YouTube for “Palestinian media watch”

·         Jewish settlements on land over the 1967 border constitute just fewer than 2% of the entire land.

 

·         Israel is offering to give up on 98% of what is historically, the heartland of the land of Israel.

The question itself assumes that the settlements are in fact illegal whereas in fact they are legally disputed!

 

See http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id351.html for various expert legal opinions.

 

·         The Jews have the legal – as well as the moral and historical right to settle within Judea and Shomron, historically the heartland of the land of Israel, a right given to them by the Great Powers after the First World War on account of the unique historical claim by the Jews to the land then called Palestine. This Jewish right to settle anywhere in that land was entrusted to Britain to deliver under the terms of the Mandate for Palestine – an obligation which it proceeded to break. Yet this history and law are denied or ignored by European and United Nations legal experts.

 

·         Judge Stephen Schwebel, former president of the International Court of Justice, determined that Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria was rooted in self-defense and therefore did not constitute “occupation.”

 

·         Eugene Rostow, former dean of Yale Law School, former undersecretary of state and co-author of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which sets out the criteria for Israel-Arab peacemaking said U.N. Resolution 242 does not call for withdrawal to the pre-1967 boundaries; Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai amounts to a 90 percent withdrawal from post-1967 areas; the legality of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria “cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors, and perhaps not even then, in view of Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, ‘the Palestine article,’” which upholds the 1922 British Mandate for Palestine. This 1922 international legal instrument considered Judea and Samaria part of the Jewish national homeland: “Jews have the same right to settle [in Judea and Samaria] as they have to settle in Haifa.”

 

·         The 1993 Oslo Accord does not prohibit the construction of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.

 

The Real Solution.

There would be peace between Israel and the Palestinians which would include a Palestinian State living peacefully with Israel if the Palestinian Authority would declare, in Arabic as well as English, that it accepts the right of the state of Israel to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people, and announce to its own people (in Arabic and English) that their policy is no longer to wage a war of destruction against the Jewish State of Israel.

If the Palestinian Authority were to say that and to match those words by actions, for example, by ending the constant message that their aim is to capture the incitement in the educational materials and media under its authority, to hatred and murder of Jews and Israelis, then there would be peace and a state of Palestine. This would happen despite right-wing Israeli objections because Israel is a democracy and the overwhelming majority of Israelis favour a compromise over land for a true long lasting peace.

The War for the minds of Anglo Jewry.

The Commentator site has an excellent article which I think is a must read for everyone who wants to put some essential facts in their pockets when coming face to face with a so called “Pro-Palestinian” person in Britain.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1609/_pro_palestinians_don_t_seem_to_be_pro_anyone_

The photo accompanying the article is extremely apt seeing that the girl holding the ridiculous piece of paper looks so Jewish. Sadly, the person in Britain who you most likely will come face to face with, when you will need these facts, comes from the secular Anglo Jewish community. I’m afraid years of British media bias and university brain washing have taken its toll on today’s Anglo-Jewish community and it’s quite common, even in your average [Orthodox] United Synagogue, to hear talk of “Palestinian Rights” which is only a euphemism for Anti-Zionism. Just read the article, he explains the concept far better than I could.

The London Evening Standard is the only daily evening paper published in London and is read by millions of Londoners (including many thousands of Jews). In fact, one copy is read by two or three people as there is a tradition amongst London commuters on the Underground, on their way home to the suburbs, to leave their already read copy on the seat of the tube carriage when they leave, for someone else to pick up.

Whilst in London last week, I picked up one such copy to read the following article which I subsequently found on the paper’s Internet site.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/israeli-court-rejects-lawsuit-by-parents-of-activist-rachel-corrie-crushed-to-death-by-army-bulldozer-8083758.html

This staggeringly spectacularly one sided article makes not the slightest attempt at even appearing balanced to the casual reader. It would seem from the article that the Israeli judge reached his verdict without any evidence at all. Indeed the article tells us that the judge was instructed by the Israeli government to cover up the “obvious” Israeli army’s guilt. This is anti-Israel propaganda at its most crude. The article quotes exclusively from interviews with Corrie’s lawyer and members of the terrorist linked movement ISM. In fact, had the ISM been asked to write an account of the court decision themselves, it is doubtful that they could have done a better job?

I'll mention just some of the evidence that any media report on the verdict should have mentioned. On this particular occasion the so called “Peace Activist” was there trying to prevent the IDF from destroying houses containing tunnels used to smuggle weapons. On other occasions ISM members have been used as human shields to allow Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists to fire at Israeli soldiers whilst preventing the IDF from firing back. However, their most sinister activities are assisting terrorist snipers in murdering Israeli soldiers by standing in open ground and trying to lure soldiers to come and arrest them, at which point the soldiers are picked off. Trying to get someone murdered is not a peaceful activity!

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/159367

No mention was given to the facts that came out in court that after examining film taken at the scene, so called eye witnesses weren’t actually there at the time and that widely publicised photos “proving” that Corrie had been intentionally crushed were shown to have beeen Photoshopped by ISM activists. The photos were debunked years ago as complete fabrications yet continued to be used by Western media even after the court case. Sloppy lazy journalism or intentional lies?

See blog post here by Daled Amos:

BBC Today Uses Photoshopped Pictures of Rachel Corrie Debunked in 2006

http://daledamos.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/bbc-today-uses-photoshopped-picture-of.html)



BBC using photoshopped picture

No mention that footage taken at the scene clearly shows that Corrie was crouched down behind a mound of rubble.

Is it any wonder that the average secular Jew living in Britain today would be anti-Israel or even if still pro-Israel, would be racked with shame and make sure they kept their mouths shut whilst at work or at college?

For those British Jews who stubbornly hold on to pro-Israel views, there is an article dedicated to them in The Independent newspaper. HonestReporting.com has a report about this insidious piece of Nazi style propaganda so I suggest you read that as well.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/yasmin-alibhaibrown-why-so-little-condemnation-of-israels-extremism-7743403.html

The HonestReporting article is here.

http://honestreporting.com/ardent-zionists-v-enlightened-jews-an-assault-on-british-jewry/

Latma uses Holocaust Survivor humour

I've looked through all the comments below this Latma video and through all the talkbacks on Caroline Glick's blog where she features this video and can find no one who thinks that the first sketch was unacceptable. I however do. I think it crosses a red line and wrote to Caroline Glick and told her so. My talkback was not published.

I think that Caroline Glick and the Latma team are doing a fantastic job battling the left wing and anti-Zionist liberal media and have always enjoyed their biting humour. However this sketch where they employ Holocaust survivor humour to complain about cramped conditions on flights to London is quite simply sick.

Doesn't anyone else think so? From the total lack of complaints on the YouTube page, it seems I am in the minority.

While The West sleeps

Chizbollah, Chamas aka, The Muslim Brotherhood are gradually sweeping across the Middle East. Lebanon has been ruled by Chizbollah for some time now. The Egyptian people have just voted in The Muslim Brotherhood. Syria will fall to the Islamic Empire any day now. Gaza is already in the repressive hands of Chamas and we see in the news today that there are riots in the Palestinian Controlled areas of Machmud Abass screaming for out and out war with Israel and the end to the P.A.’s corrupt regime. It looks as if Chamas will be ruling over Ramallah very soon. The Western and liberal Israeli media call this a “grass roots” demonstration.  A cry from the people!

Looking at the pro-Palestinian left-wing sites, (mostly run by guys with lovely Jewish surnames), there is a very obvious sharp change of policy against Abass. He is now not just in Israel’s pocket but is in fact an agent of Israel! He is working for the IDF and is part of the Israeli occupation. If the Palestinians ever want human rights, they tell us, they must be ruled by Chamas, ie, The Muslim Brotherhood.

How can you say “Chamas” and ”human rights” in the same breath and still keep a straight face? The liberal press manage it without any difficulty.

Is the P.A. and Abass corrupt? Absolutely yes!  They are corrupt because the United States and the West allow them to be so. They shower the regime with money and then sit back with closed eyes and crossed arms. The Western governments proclaim that they cannot interfere into the internal policies of these regimes. They cannot insist on accountability for their own donations, for freedom of speech, free press and for democracy. Then, the West looks on and through misty eyes, wonders why the Muslim Brotherhood is sweeping through the Middle East.

Please, don't wake me, no, don't shake me
Leave me where I am, I'm only sleeping.

Please, don't spoil my day, I'm miles away
And after all I'm only sleeping.

Keeping an eye on the world going by my window
Taking my time.

(“I’m Only Sleeping”, The Beatles, Revolver, 1966)

But time is running out for the West. The Muslim Brotherhood has a strong foothold into Europe now and is given free rein in America to brainwash the next generation in all its universities. This is exactly what has been happening in the universities in Europe for the past 30 years. I know, I was there!

Meanwhile, the West is investing even more in ways to preserve the environment and of course, blaming the Jews and Israel for all the world’s ills.

At least there will be clean water for the future rulers of the West to wash their feet with before they go off to the mosque for morning prayers.

A sweet little poem and my reply

A few weeks ago I received an email from a "Dati Leumi" friend of mine containing a sweet little poem which I'm sure he thought was very amusing. I did not!

Here is the original poem and below is my reply.

The Fanat in the Hat and Other Stories

Eli D. Clark

(with apologies to Dr. Seuss)

THE FANAT IN THE HAT

I sat there with Sally.
We sat on the bus.
We sat there together.
No one made a fuss.

Then who came aboard?
The Fanat in the Hat!
And he said to us,
“How can you sit like that?

“You know it is wrong
To sit next to each other.”
I said, “She’s my sister,
And I am her brother.”

He pointed at Sally,
“Go back there to sit.
If you stay in front,
I think I will spit.

“I do not want to see you

Go out or come in.
Your elbows are showing
And making men sin.”

“I paid for my seat

Just like you,” Sally cried.
“I can sit where I want!
It’s for me to decide!"

“Where do you think you are?

This is not Tel Aviv.”
The Fanat in the Hat said,
“Sit in back or you leave.”

“Now do as I say,

You loose woman, you.”
Then out from behind
Came Thug One and Thug Two.

They had beards, they had hats,

And they wore black and white.
Their fingers were curled
Into fists that were tight.

They were big, they were mean,

And they blocked our way.
They did not look like men
Who learn Torah all day.

They screamed at poor Sally.

“Prutzoh!” they shouted.
“We will take care of you.”
And we did not doubt it.

We looked up to heaven.

We looked left and right.
Should we try to run
Or stand up and fight?

We needed a plan,

A way to escape,
Before those two Thugs
Squashed us both like a grape.

Then Thug One and Thug Two

Shouted, “Oy! Help us please!”
The Fanat in the Hat
Just fell to his knees.

What made them shake

And what made them yelp?
What made those bullies
Cry out for help?

We looked and we saw

A giant black cat,
Walking erect
In a red and white hat.

The Cat in the Hat

Looked the Thugs in the eye.
“These things need to stop.
And I’ll tell you why.

“Scaring young women

Is not a good game.
Worse, it is causing
A Hillul Ha-Shem.

“Here is a new game

To play,” said the cat.
“The game is called boxing.
Are you good at that?”

The Thugs said, “We box.

When we finish with you,
You will lie on your back
For a week or for two.”

The cat pulled a box out

And opened the top.
We heard a big voom
That made everything stop.

The Fanat in the Hat

And the Thugs in their beards
Were sucked into the box.
They all disappeared.

The cat closed the lid

And sealed it with glue.
“Goodbye,” said the cat,
“And good riddance to you.”

...And here is my reply...

They gathered outside Bnai Brak and Meah Shaarim,

From out of every corner,

The mob could be seen,

From Chelonim, Datai Leumi and everyone in between.

“Get rid of the Dossim, get rid of them all”!

“They are parasites on society”, came the loud call.

All the cameras were there, recording the scene,

Was it Berlin 1933? It could well have been.
“Go back to Poland and Russia, go to hell!
Stop using our blood for matzos,
And throwing our babies down the well”.

Voom! the last ship left, the last plane flew,

 Filled only with Chareidi refugees, (as well as the crew).

Gone were the men in black hats, their wives and children too.
The crowds screamed hysterically “Good riddance to you!”

Then the sky turned red as the missiles came down,
Tel Aviv went first, then every town.
For who was left davaning for Am Yisrael?
The yeshivos fell silent with no one around…
As the last Kollel, Beis Midrash closed its door,
The State of Israel was no more.

(C) Author of blog Reb Mordechai Writes

You can't escape it. Not anywhere.

As anyone who is raising teenage sons would know, you have to find things of common interest in order to try and persuade them that you weren’t born on another planet. (I was however born in another country which may as well be the same thing as far as they are concerned).

My boys, despite claiming that they are 100% culturally Israeli, nevertheless are fanatic supporters of Arsenal (pronounced “Arsnol”) Football Club, following the game results you could say, almost religiously. My eldest son even submitted his English Bagrut project on the subject of the English FA, dedicating a whole page to his beloved Arsenal and their historic rivalry with the other “Jewish” football team up the road, Tottenham (pronounced “Totnum”) Hotspurs, better known by their nickname, “Spurs”.

In order to keep up to date and have some kind of opinion on the latest Arsenal related matter whenever my sons are home from yeshiva, I am a regular reader of Arseblog, one of the most popular Arsenal FC blogs.

It amuses me that just as a religious Jew might write a particular Avoda Zara (idol worship) by missing out some letters and replacing them with asterisks, so Arseblog refers to their arch rivals at Tottenham as “Sp*rs”. Anyone thinking of going to the site should be warned that it contains the usual football fan related swearwords.

I found this blog rather refreshing and a change from my usual Internet haunts and enjoyed a bit of escapism, following the insignificant discussions over which player was best and how much money the manager ought to spend to keep Van Persie.



From left to right: Benayoun, Walcott and Van Persie



Only once in the past have I made a contribution by adding to a discussion about one of Israel’s best players who was on loan to Arsenal for the season, Yossi Benayoun. They were wondering about the level of his English. In fact, Yossi probably has a better grasp of the language than many contributors to the blog. One guy said matter-of-factly that his mother tongue was of course Yiddish. Obviously I could not resist putting them straight and pointing out that Benayoun comes from a Sefardi family and was hardly likely to know more than a few words in Yiddish. I explained to them that his mother tongue was in fact Hebrew which is the national language of Israel. They were most amused!

Then, last week, I was forced to submit another post.  My escapism fantasy world was shattered as I read an article where the author commented that the subject he was writing about was similar to the fact that the Palestinian and Israeli sides were just as bad as each other. I would have let his comment go had it not been for posters who taking their cue from the article, waded in with Anti-Israel comments. One of them I could not ignore:

http://arseblog.com/2012/06/joy-divisions/

https://portal.arseblog.com/arses/index/8381/1339676851

To which I replied (yes I called myself Shlomo):

It just goes to show. You can’t escape it can you.

It's been two days since I posted this comment. So far, no one has replied. Let's hope it stays that way.

HonestReporting.com Are we missing the point?

http://honestreporting.com/der-sturmer-in-the-uk-2/

I pop by the website of HonestReporting.com every now and again to check out the latest article on media bias. A few years ago I would have considered this essential reading but today I question if article after article of outrage at Israel hatred and Jew hatred is simply missing the point.

There is no doubt that there are many anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic reporters and journalists in the British press. They are not on the fringes of British media or given a forum simply for counter opinion sake. They are mainstream writers in mainstream media outlets.

There can be no doubt by any objective criteria that The Guardian as well as other British media outlets have crossed the line between legitimate criticism of Israel and Jew hatred (and I don’t mean a small incursion over the line but a full blown invasion).

One has to ask oneself, why have the so called politically and racially sensitive media watchdogs been either silent or totally dismissive of complaints of Anti-Semitism and allowed these hate publications to continue with impunity?

Why don’t other mainstream media outlets openly condemn these articles and treat them with the disgust they deserve? Silence in the face of hatred amounts to complicity in the crime.

I believe Honest Reporting is doing a fine job in exposing these hate articles but haven’t we got to the stage where there are simply too many of them? In fact, it is rare to find a balanced, let alone pro-Israel article in the British press today and when there is one then the writer is considered at the fringes of acceptable opinion.

At the heart of this issue is the inescapable conclusion that it is not simply one or two British media outlets which express these opinions but indeed the majority. This is a nation which views these hate filled articles as perfectly acceptable and sees nothing wrong with it. In fact, many in Britain would say that it is their moral obligation to spread Israel and Jew hatred wherever possible.

There have always been Jew haters but Britain today is a country which allows them to flourish in mainstream media. One can only conclude that Britain is a morally corrupt and evil society.

Please, someone, anyone, convince me that I am wrong or at least cast doubt on my conclusions.

Jewish Telegraph's answer to Anti-Semitism? Stop being Jewish!

I have not blogged for some time as I have been busy with other projects but an editorial in this week’s Jewish Telegraph prompted me to publish this blog post as a way of letting off steam.

Many Israeli kids look at the Jews of Germany in 1933 and wonder why they did not leave en-mass, even when normal Jewish life became impossible.

Well, If they would read this editorial in the Jewish Telegraph from March 2012 then they'd understand how this came about.

I have put the most upsetting sentence in BOLD.

http://www.jewishtelegraph.com/opinion.html

No knee-jerk reaction

E-MAIL: editor@jewishtelegraph.com

Were we to succumb to near-paranoia every time there is a tragedy of this type, we are playing straight into the hands of those who seek to destabilise our lives. As a community, in this country, we are well-protected both within and without. Members of the Community Security Trust provide a reassuring presence at major events and in some communities can be seen on the streets with police and community support officers in sensitive areas, particularly during yomim tovim and on Shabbat. And our schools are secure.

If we take sensible precautions by not gathering in public, visible locations — and that includes dispersing speedily after synagogue services and simchas — we do not encourage problems.

The tragic events in Toulouse serve to prove though that there are still those who see Jews as legitimate targets for all manner of grievances, although the gunman in this case had already taken what he saw as misguided revenge against members of the French military. There will always be those whose delusions persuade them to carry out atrocities as in the case of Mumbai, Columbine and other attacks on schools, but there is no suggestion that as a result, we as a community, are under any greater threat than previously. Vigilance though is always the key word."

Does the editor realise the significance of what he has written? His self-denial of the current situation is astonishing. I noticed that the BBC News site last week made a point of writing about how many French Jews are planning or have stepped up their plans to come to Israel? There was even a video about it on the BBC site which was quickly taken down after a few hours. Predictably, the video was replaced by another that sent out exactly the opposite message. Someone saved the old video and posted it on Youtube. Today when I went to put the link on this blog post I found that Youtube had shut down the user’s account.

Rav Yizachar Frand teaches that when he was a child he could not understand why so many of the old men in his shul had the same story. They all came from Germany shortly after their shops had been attacked and destroyed in Kristallnacht. Later he realised that only those who's stores had been destroyed were the Jews who had woken up and left in time!



Secret school in Kovno Ghetto



So what next? The Jewish Telegraph will advise British Jewry to only buy their kosher products through delivery service in unmarked vans so as not to draw attention to themselves? Jewish schools must be situated in cellars, out of site? Mezuzot should be removed from the outside of the doorframe and placed inside so that the homes will not be able to be identified as Jewish homes?

What the Telegraph is suggesting as a response to the rise of Anti-Semitism in Europe is to cease being identified as Jewish. Most secular Jews will conclude that it’s far simpler to stop identifying as Jews all together!



Seder Night in Jerusalem

Meanwhile, last Friday night in Israel, I got annoyed with my eldest son because he kept us all waiting 20 minutes to say kiddush as he was chatting with his friends outside the shul. In less than two weeks time, European Jewry will be sitting down to the Seder on the night of Pesach and singing the words "Next Year in Yerushalayim"! This year, Be'ezrat Hashem, they will listen to their own words!