Antisemtism

Hi All,

One of the current ongoing topics of the Jewish community in Britain is its fraught relationship between the Labour Party, its leader Jeremy Corbyn and his fanatical supporters .The latest row is the failure of Labour adopt the full definition of anti-Semitism as given by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, because of the references to Israel, for example Israel's right to exist (not) criticism of Israeli government actions as criticism of Israel is nothing new, because Israel itself is a democracy whose Parliament is a fractious, noisy and boisterous place , in which an observer may wonder how anything gets done.

I suppose 'dirty Jew' is unacceptable, but 'dirty Zionist' is fair game. You can see to a Jew how changing one word simply looks like a fig leaf for anti-Semitism, as it isn't just criticism of Israel that you get, but a denial that it should exist and a real desire to see it gone, in reference to the only Jewish majority state in the world and what is the last refuge for Jews who get persecuted elsewhere.  Plus I've noticed that real Israel haters are often overt anti-Semites or if covert, when probed far enough, the polish rubs off and they're as anti-Semitic as the overt ones.

The casual reader may take the argument that Zionism is a political movement, whereas Judaism is a religion, thus criticism of Zionism is okay because its politics and not an attack upon Jews. This is a delicate line, but an interesting one, because my grandparents came from a very religious 'Orthodox'* Middle Eastern Iraqi  Jewish family, they were NOT at that time  Zionists in a political sense, only in a religious way that would be part of divine revelation,  i.e. only when Messiah came would Jews return en mass to Israel and be governed by Jewish law, with the world being a peaceful utopian paradise . In the late 1930s and 1940s , Zionism was very much an Ashkenazi and secular  driven ideology.  In fact Iraqi Jews, who had lived there since the first exile,  were a very important, educated and rich minority and helped, along with the British after the collapse of Ottoman rule, to build up modern Iraq and were its business people (90% of the Iraq's chamber of commerce was Jewish) , civil servants (education, transport and post office) and politicians (the most successful finance minister of the  1920s Iraq was Jewish) . That was until the later 1930s and early 40s, with Nazi influences and the Farhud pogrom which was the beginning of the end of our 3,000 year old community. 

When in 1948 Israel was firmly established as a modern state,  it was the Iraqi government and other Arab countries which conflated Zionism and Judaism, Zionist and Jew together: and thanks to them, today Sephardi or Mizrahi Jews are among the most ardent of supporters of Israel . From the late 1940s to mid 1950s, Middle Eastern and North African Jews were stripped of their citizenship, wealth, property and forced to emigrate to Israel, France, Britain and Canada  , being allowed to take nothing more than a suitcase. Why? Because they were accused of being a fifth column, Mossad agents, agents of Israel and not Arab, but foreigner  Jews.  Israel thus gained a massive influx and of and middle eastern influence into the new country, with millions stuck in refugee camps in the deserts of Israel. Yet Israel went onto prosper and we know what Iraq is like today- despite its massive oil wealth. Incidentally a similar thing happened to Persia, when the fanatics overthrew the Shah and , well the rest is history.

Thus when I read that Corbyn supporters are saying of British Jews that we are agents of Israel or somehow a fifth column, rather than citizens within a community engaging in civic political discourse when we can see that a communist who disparages  Britain and would be a disaster for EVERYONE in this country, it makes me and I think the rest of our community quiver and be fearful. It happened before, well its happened a lot of times. But in the 21st century, where we are supposedly rational, liberal and tolerant ? 

Oh . I guess not.

This has already played out in France.

Will Britain be next? Will we have to leave?

* In the Sephardi world  there is no orthodox, conservative or reform Judaism , just Judaism.

Hovering Hora!

Hi All,

This is cool

Shabbat Shalom

Hi All,

Shabbat Shalom!

Trump this!

Hi All,

A song from my musical in the making :  Trump this!

Trump :
Now dying in the street is unlawful!

Aide: It's a swallow!

Trump:
A swallow? Oh that's really awful ,oh my word !
It's an overseas bird!
These foreign birds just come and die hear; it's a scrounger no doubt!
Aide: They're taking over that's what I feel
Trump: Throw the alien out!

[Trump turns to an old document called the American constitution]

Trump: What a shabby looking statute no use to the town
I'LL write an executive order  that you most pull the constitution down, then we'll have a constitution of me on a  a gorgeous golden  big horse ..

Aide: You'll be re elected

Trump : it's certain

Aide : of course !

Teddy vs bulldog

Hi All,

Time for a rap, lol :

Give the PM a harrumpf

Hi All,

Secretly filmed during the chequers summit  Olly "headly"  Robbins and Prime Minister May- as portrayed by Mel Brookes-  demand an Harrumpf  over their submission and surrender to the EU. As we can see David Davies is brow beaten into submission :

And the rest is history , lol!

Everyone is a populist

The word 'populist' is , I find, one of the most frustrating words used in politics at present. In the current trend that word is used to describe people from the right and left who are out of 'mainstream' thinking, with the implication that these thinkers are offering stuff that is impossible to give away or do, but the people are too dumb to understand that and therefore the mature, sensible politicians have to regroup and frustrate these populist at every turn and by any means. This is seen in the farce that Brexit has become. Of course people are populists. We all are. We are the ultimate cherry pickers, having gone beyond left and right .

Yet the politicians who decry 'populism',  which in reality is everything they don't agree with, are populists themselves. We can see this in Britain wherein we have a welfare state and state funded healthcare system. If it is not 'populist' to claim that we can continue to run this healthcare system 'free at delivery' without further rises in taxes I don't know what is. Is that not something that is impossible to do or give away, but people are still fooled by the omission of the politician. The further omission is , as we've seen since Gordon Brown, the gap between taxes and expenditure was attempted to be filled by large increases in indirect 'stealth' taxation, which in any case isn't enough to fund these services, so we have been borrowing heavily even as people decry austerity. In America they can get away with huge deficits and tax cuts because of the dollar as world currency, although when that is no longer the case , America is going to have a lot of tough choices in a political atmosphere  that isn't  conducive to compromise. But then at present neither is Britain.

But don't blame the populists. All politicians are populists.

Battle of Britain

Hi All,

Time for a well cool song:

Had the British Empire surrendered in 1940, our planet would have entered the abyss of a dark age of tyranny and  total genocide.

gevurah vs hessed

Hi All,

My orthodox (not Haredi) understanding is that every Jew has the right to be as religious as they choose – and adopt any stringency they choose-and this isn’t cherry picking in the Christian sense. Also because we have an oral tradition we don’t just follow the letter of the” old testament”. The real divide in Judaism is between lenient and strict interpretation of Jewish law.

Sometimes Sephardi and Ashkenazi are either or.

But on balance Sephardi are more lenient under the interpretation : ‘ koha dehetera ‘adif, “the power of being lenient is preferable”.

Ashkenazim tend toward the quality of “gevurah” or strength. They viewed halakhic stringencies as a positive expression of love of God. The stricter the demands of Jewish law i.e. halakha, the more self-sacrifice and heroism were entailed in fulfilling the commandments. In contrast, the Sephardim tend toward the quality of “hessed,” i.e. compassion. We view halakha as a loving means of serving God. Whereas Ashkenazim veered toward halakhic stringency, Sephardim tilt toward halakhic leniency. As Rabbi Yosef said: “The Sephardic rabbis are of the school of Hillel, tending toward hessed, and they do not have stringencies; they walk on the ‘king’s highway.’ However, Ashkenazic rabbis tend toward gevurah, and are from the school of Shammai who were strict.”

When Torah is divorced from life, it becomes an artificial construct relevant only to self-selected scholars who function within a narrow, self-contained society of their own and it was never given to us by God to be like that. It’s for all of us.

Is May a gamma quadrant changeling?

Hi All,

I think I've figured out our treacherous witch of a  prime minister   :  could May be one of the liquid shape shifting  "founders"  of the Gamma Quadrant power known as the Dominion? Let us not forget that they infiltrated both the Romulans , Starfleet and most famously the Klingon Empire which caused a war with the Cardassians and the Klingons (which in turn led Cardassia to join the Dominion) .

Here's May

Here's the shapeshifter

Thoughts in the comments

P.S. whilst it was gutting to see us loose at the football , at least the moo won't be able to use the patriotism that a win would have created for her surrender document to the Dominion.

Where is Sisko , Picard and Mr Spock when you need them?

The gender pay gap according to the liberal left

Hi All,

Beth- works as a waitress  for £9 per hour  and works 33.5 hours a week, flexibly and on shifts as she has children and is primarily responsible for getting them to/from school and taking them to the doctors when ill. She's happy with this arrangement.

John- works for £9 per hour and works 45 hours a week, flexibly and on shifts. He is the primary bred winner and is a waiter. He is happy with this arrangement.

Liberal left world : There is clearly discrimination going on her. John earns more than Beth!

Voice of sanity : Huh? They both get paid the same hourly rate....

Liberal left world : No it's sexist discrimination . John earns more than Beth per week ! Gender pay gap!

Voice of sanity : But, but that's because John works more hours than-

Liberal left world : Sexist ! Beth should get the same pay as John !

Voice of sanity : But she works less hours....

Liberal left word : It's the only way to reduce inequality and prevent women being treated badly by the system.!

Voice of sanity : But that means an inequality for John and is being discriminated against

Liberal Left world :  That's okay. Providing Beth is not discriminated against and is being treated equally.

Voice of sanity : But she isn't ... oh never mind. Nice weather we're having...

Two years for this?!

The context

The government has had two years to come up with a Brexit plan. TWO YEARS ! Yet they've just wasted this time on apparently doing nothing and sideling the very department which was tasked with Brexit implementation. Then we have the latest summit at chequers (the PM's country estate, akin to Camp David in American terms) .  It was off to a terrible start with the odious and insulting briefings against Brexit Cabinet members such as advising wherein the taxi firms were in the nearest village (1 mile away) and calling them 'naracasitists ', to 'be replaced with younger colleagues'  and who had to suck up whatever crap May gave them 'for the good of the country'. This was remiscient of May the arrogant, nasty , secluded and non collegial  pre  her humiliation at an election she decided to call and in which she utterly messed up with her cryogenically frozen performance . Us conservatives have had to watch this witch govern with incompetence for day one,  almost give the keys to the nation to a socialist who'd turn Britain into Venezuela, but even worse being warned or threatened by this possibility - a possibility only made possible by the very people saying it! At the same time her cronies were going to brief Labour MPs on the deal . Apparently Germany was briefed before the Cabinet. If so that's at the very least unconstitutional, at worse a form of treason (this is perhaps the most important decision to be made in a generation and consulting with a foreign power before one's own colleagues is ?). Several days later we have numerous resignations. Boris was the big headline, but I think David Davis was the one who said it right . He did not want to be 'an unwilling conscript' to a policy he couldn't agree with. Resignations on matters of principle and not scandal. That's a first for many a year.

The proposal

May's proposal is flawed in one simple way. It is an opening position that has to be agreed to by the EU and by the British Parliament. It will fail in Parliament because most Labour MPs would truly want to keep us within the EU. What is the point of them voting for a deal that keeps us in the EU in all but name, but non of the influences or levers of power with which to fashion agreements we want? Likewise Conservatives can't really back this plan because  it is Brexit in name only. But the big problem is that it is an opening position in a negotiation. In such negotiations one has to compromise. But this document is so compromised,  you can imagine how much more -as has been the case throughout the past 2 years -the EU will squeeze out of Britain. Honestly if the EU just asked for another trillion then we'd probably cave in and agree to it .

What happens now ?

Who knows is the answer. Will May get this past Parliament ? And will May survive?  I think May will survive in the short term, although because of her performance at the last election, the Conservatives would have to have entered into a party suicide pact for her to go onto 2020.  No-one wants to pull the trigger for her then to survive, which would make her impossible to get rid of. Furthermore she had better avoid trying to get her own way with opposition votes, she should look at what happened to the Conservatives with Robert Peel and the repeal of the corn laws. Of course all this could be moot. The EU could and probably will reject these proposals anyway.

Should she go?

Yes I hope she does. But see above for a caveat .

Football's coming home?

Hi all,

2-0!

Is football finally coming home?

When England scored the whole street erupted!

Will this give Conservatives courage to stop appeaser May,even as Fox,Gove and Johnson capitulated on brexit?

Anyways . A cool song from a Jew and a Brummie:

Is it me or does the first few seconds of the song remind people of May and her ridiculous / inept / appeasing handling of Brexit?  After the farce and treachery of the past 24 hours, I've ripped up my party membership and cancelled my donations. 

P.S.waistcoats are now officially cool😆

It's Friday!!

Hi All,

Song via my well cool niece *

And something traditional :

Shabbat Shalom!

* last count I have 12 nieces and 12 nephews

Celtic nationalism and anti England

Last night the Scottish Nationalists were at it again- this time forcing parliamentary votes on matters that wouldn't normally be forced by divisions, so much so the official Labour opposition didn't bother to turn up. Yet the SNP forced votes on each of these 'estimates' for spending (as Parliament officially controls the purse strings) . Why did they do that? The reason is of course that England were playing a crucial football match and thus the SNP wanted to force Conservative MPs to be around and deprive them of watching the match. Which they did for 66 minutes.

Would the SNP be that petty? Well yes they would. The more I encounter Scottish Nationalists and for that matter the other Celtic nationalists in Wales and Ireland, the more I'm convinced 80% of that nationalism is born, not out of some sense of being Scottish or Welsh, but born out of a deep hate for the English, even over events hundreds of years ago, events which the English have either forgotten or feel that it has 'nothing to do' with them today. As a Jew I don't hate contemporary Germany, even though it was Germany which dragged the world into two bitter world wars and which in one led to the genocide of my people : I don't hate contemporary Spain or Russia because of years gone by and in time, maybe a thousand or so years,  I look forward to a period in which Israel and Arab states have reconciled or at least accept each other. Yet ask the Irish about Cromwell and they will look at you as if you are talking about Hitler. Likewise the Scottish Nationalist who seems to think that the film' Braveheart'  was a real life documentary, rather than a one sided load of biased piffle- as was his film about the American Revolution which might have just had the  British characters saying ' throw another child on the fire, Lord Bastard'  -  by 'it's the Jews' Mel. 

Brexit is another case in point. Why do the Scottish Nationalists want Scotland  to become an independent state, only to then join up to the EU? To my mind this has nothing to do with patriotic nationalism, but everything to do with hating whatever it is the English do, a sort of synthetic nationalism. Thus England voted for Brexit. So Scotland has to vote the other way . Then Scotland has to be independent. But one only needs to look at the Irish Republic- despite the EU currently saying they are acting how they are acting because of Irish concerns- and how she was treated during the Irish banking crisis when the Irish Republic was nothing other than a protectorate or tributary state of Brussels. If the English had acted like that then they'd have been rioting on the streets. But because it wasn't the hated foe of synthetic Irish nationalism then it was ok to be treated like a banking colony. Incidentally the whole matter of the Irish border. The newsflash is that the UK more or less gave up on  the Northern Ireland Union 20 years ago under Tony Blair and that's why it is a problem today.

Yet unless Scotland or Wales wish to arm themselves to the extent that Israel does (should they become independent ) , then they will be forever reliant on the largest state on the British isles i.e. England as the republic of Ireland has been . I said in the previous article for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The nationalism of the Celtic fringe in this context will eventually stir an English form of nationalism and not incidentally of the UKIP form. There's already a very popular demand for an English Parliament and not the ludicrous situation we have at the moment with Parliaments and assemblies for Ulster, Scotland and Wales, but not one for England , but a Westminster Parliament were SNP and other nationalist MPs can vote on English matters, but because of devolution English MPs cannot vote on the same for Scotland et al.  There's already quiet resentment at Scottish Nationalists and their whinging and blaming every problem , real or imagined on the English. I can tell you that English people turn the air blue every time Nicola Sturgeon comes onto the tv, a reaction worse than that given to Alex Salmond.

This is not to say that my observations lead me to conclude the English hate the Scots, but rather they are bewildered and resentful at what they see as the 'childish', 'petty' and 'vindictive'  SNP.  To the English, Scotland is the romance of the Lowlands and Highlands, the bagpipes, whiskey, glens and lochs, the stotic canny ally, the tough Glaswegian  and the  conservative banking establishment of Edinbrugh, the thinkers of the enlightenment ( which happened after the Union), with its own legal , educational and religious system. Therefore they cannot understand the likes of the SNP and their claims of how beastly the English actually are. Indeed compared to how Spain has recently dealt with Catalan nationalists, then England is a model of liberalism and restraint . But push England too far and one day you could up in a similar situation to Spain . Let us hope that this doesn't happen and that the Union which has served all nations of the United Kingdom extremely well isn't brought down by nationalism and for that matter the EU and its attempts to divide Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

Vive le Union!

Vive le United Kingdom.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

So said Issaac Newton and what is true of science is also true - it seems- of politics. While we have been bombarded by the news of 'populism' in a deregulatory sense from the media, it has been a focus soley on what is being called  right wing populism. I do not like the way we talk of populism because every politician is a populist as much as an ideologue , but it is the term we are stuck with.  What has been overlooked is the smashing of the old centre -left parties in Europe and - wait for it- even in America- and its replacement by 'populist' far left parties (France, Spain, Portugal , Italy,  Greece)  or far left groups within existing parties (UK, USA) .

I would guess that reporters  now in their forties (and forty something women) came of age during the Blair and Clinton years , thus being stuck in the mould of the late nineties or early naughties of Clintonian third way politics and Blairite centralism, the embracement , but regulation of the free markets, combined with social liberalism was the order of the day . This was successful for that period as it summed it up perfectly. But today is a different world and people have reverted in instincts of tribal politics, because in a fearful world people are not interested in compromise, but security and familiarity. Why if you are committed to left or right philosophies would you want something that is like a statue compared to the 'real' thing? The answer is of course most people have a mixture of left and right views, hence centralism, but to the ideologically committed, purity is worth more than power. Compromise is treachery. That the media do not focus on the populist far left is easy. Like Corbyn's takeover of the British Labour party, the centralists hope to be able to hijack and influence policy from within. The hard left see them as useful idiots, providing they don't speak out too much. That is until they have control of nominating candidates and have power or their own  where it counts- in Parliaments, Congresses and Assemblies.

What must be painful for centre -left people is to see their side being taken over by their own 'nutters' just as parts of the right have been swept aside for a far more full bloodied right wing stance. America is a good example of that. When Trump came to national attention, the Democrat hiracheary assumed that if they stuck with the centralism of the past and Clinton they'd win. Bernie Sanders was , like Corbyn, the plucky far left outsider. The Democratic party preferred Sanders , like Labour preferred Corbyn. Although in the end the Democrats got Clinton via the Party machine and lost, as Milliband lost in the UK. Trump came to power and the right shifted right. The left didn't stay centre left either. They have also shifted further left. So much so that  in the UK we got Corbyn. In America, without a Parliamentary system, there isn't such a figurehead until election years. But we can see already that the Democrats are swinging leftward : In New York a self proclaimed socialist (not a 'liberal')  Alexandria  Ocasio -Cortez, a 28 year old Hispanic and fierce opponent of Israel, defeated the establishment incumbent and Senior Democrat (who was tipped to take over the party leadership in Congress)  in a safe Democratic seat.  Here in Britain , we wait for a purge of Labour moderates as the far left 'Momentum' continue their takeover of the Labour Party.  We can see where this is leading, in so much as the politics of the future will be beyond the third way and revert back to type of two distinct red/blue choices. It will be then up to voters to decide who is the 'lesser of the two evils'.

The sound of silence

Hi All,

Simon and Garfunkell  classic :

I understand as someone who battles with mental illness( bipolar and agoraphobia) about seeing or personfiying  darkness as an old friend and the silence, in fact I identify this song as a sort of mental health awareness song, even if it was not the writers intention.

______________________

Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence .

In restless dreams I walked alone Narrow streets of cobblestone 'Neath the halo of a street lamp I turned my collar to the cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light That split the night And touched the sound of silence .

And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never shared No one dared Disturb the sound of silence "Fools," said I, "you do not know Silence like a cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you" But my words like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells of silence.

 And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sound of silence"