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In the nineteen-eighties at my synagogue, a woman rabbi came to speak to us about women wearing tallit, which was being advocated by some of the Progressive clergy. Three women congregants were in the vanguard, wearing tallit for morning services and all day on Yom Kippur. A celebrity visiting the shul called them an abomination, which we thought was rude and uncalled-for. There were perhaps…

For a movie lover, I’m strangely reluctant to watch new films, especially the nominated films lauded and awarded for the performances of actors, the insight of scriptwriters and the magical vision of directors. And yet, I want to watch films more than ever, to divert myself from the world of wars, politics and proud bigotry. I have recourse to the films noirs of the immediate post war era, any…

Imagine an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in which a cash-strapped Mr Bennet is resolved to get his five sons married to rich heiresses, to improve the families diminishing fortunes. The lively and intelligent second-born, Elliott, takes against arrogant, wealthy Phyllis Williams-Darcy but the undoubted chemistry between them flourishes into love. I don’t like it? Do you? Gender blind casting…

On Sunday, I was at the annual LCSCA conference, the London Centre for Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, a flourishing organization conceived, brought to birth and nurtured by Professor David Hirsh of Goldsmith’s University. Professor Hirsh emphasized the urgency of working against an antisemitic ethos which he said is now found ‘at the highest levels of sophisticated thinking…and that’s…

A popular though counter-intuitive urban legend is that, notwithstanding dictionary definitions and an extensive library of literature on the subject, the word antisemitism does not mean hostility to Jews. The purpose of this truque is to imply that any complainant about Jew hate is either lying or ignorant. An anti Jewish extremist, Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, often assets that she, being an Arab, is a…

For a long time, the synagogue felt to me like the safest place in the world, so much so that I thought I wouldn’t be frightened, even if I had a sudden fatal heart attack during the service. I have not had that feeling of safety in the synagogue for some years although I have sometimes experienced it elsewhere, in Israel for example, or on a march in London, for the hostages or against…

I grew up in Upper Clapton, on the north side of Hackney, considered a little more bourgeois than Central Hackney, where my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins resided in a house in Amhurst Road, the basement converted into a flat for the widowed and remarried Uncle Simy. One of my cousins, zichrona livracha, said, ‘It wasn’t a house, it was an institution.’ In our house in Upper Clapton…

Please read the small print. ‘ANTISEMITIC’ MEANS ANTI-ARAB This is not correct. The opposite of antisemite is not semite but philosemite. However the interpretation of antisemitism as anti-Palestinianism has great popularity as it enables the antagonist to accuse Jews of antisemitism while denying it in himself. There are also those who, as in Tiktoker Fiona Ryan’s song, ‘wear their…

I’m never afraid when some keyboard warrior tells me that I am soon to die; for one thing, they are usually in the United States and I am in England. I do get annoyed that X Support doesn’t find it breaks their rules. If the person tells me that I will be gassed, because they are hoping for another Shoah, the algorithm probably does not identify ‘gassed’ as a threat. As for those who tell me my…

Like most people in this country, the United Kingdom, I watch television and I watch films. I marvel at the ability of actors to convey, with a blink of the eye or a single word, an entire narrative of inner life. I used to think such skills must run on a motor of wisdom and intelligence, but then I heard Vanessa Redgrave ranting at the 1978 Academy Awards about ‘Zionist hoodlums’ and thought she…

As you know, the yellow ribbon is used as a symbol for keeping hostages or prisoners in mind, currently with reference to the hostages still held in Gaza, the living and the dead. At home, I have some yellow ribbons which were handed out at vigils I attended in London, for the hostages and in memory of those murdered on or in the wake of 7 October 2023. I thought about tying them round trees…

For several years, I worked in the large book department of a branch of WH Smith. It was a part time job, because my youngest children were still at primary school and I wanted to be home with them after school. They were good to me at Smith’s, allowing me to fit my hours to my husband’s needs when he was having chemotherapy, as well as paid compassionate leave in the last weeks of his…

From Peniel to Tel Aviv The name first appears in Genesis 32:28, when Jacob wrestles with an celestial being. Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֵלָ֖יו מַה־שְּׁמֶ֑ךָ וַיֹּ֖אמֶר יַעֲקֹֽב׃ Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.” וַיֹּ֗אמֶר לֹ֤א יַעֲקֹב֙ יֵאָמֵ֥ר עוֹד֙ שִׁמְךָ֔ כִּ֖י…

Dear Friends I get the impression that people of good will are often perplexed by the term antisemitism. They don’t want it fired at them like a poison art but are not sure if we are unreasonable, aiming it at persons you think are merely making points, about war and peace, wealth and poverty, vengeance and forgiveness. You have watched the news on BBC and Sky; read the Guardian and the…

A reliable informant (one of my daughters) told me that the 1979 television film of Jack Rosenthal’s The Knowledge was available on Youtube and that it had stood up well to the ravages of time. I found it and watched. The Knowledge refers to the qualification required of London taxi drivers, knowledge of topography and routes from any one place in London to any other. The story concerns half a…