Call Me Cassandra

Last week an elderly Jewish man was pulled over by the police in New York. I am not entirely clear exactly what happened but it seems clear he had committed some minor misdemeanor. Enraged Chassidim claim he is deaf and could not follow police instructions so the police beat him before arresting him. More reliable sources are less dramatic and say he might have been treated a little forcefully as he was cuffed and led to the patrol car after belligerently refusing to hand over his papers. I know very few actual details and those come from notoriously biased and unreliable sources so I am not going to offer my opinion on the rights or wrongs of the police action.

What followed however was a scandalously irresponsible riot by the Torah warriors of Borough Park. Fires were lit on the streets and police cars were attacked. At least one police car is said to have had a Molotov cocktail thrown through its window. It took riot police hours to quiet the streets according to press reports. Local Chassidim while worried about the Chillul Hashem (desecration of His name) the riot caused are adamant that the police had it coming to them because of their aggressive enforcement of traffic laws in their area.

Last week a twenty-year-old ultra-orthodox man admitted his three-month old baby boy to hospital with internal bleeding in the head and bite marks on the neck. The baby subsequently died and the father has been charged with manslaughter after allegedly admitting beating it. Apparently the infant, who the father suspected was malformed, had not allowed him to sleep and had had his head bashed against a wall. Again I do not know any facts other than those the media is releasing and thus I have no opinion on the rights or wrongs of the case. Not surprisingly though, the Rabbinate in Jerusalem do know for certain he is completely innocent and have threatened riots if he is not released immediately. The police have taken the threat seriously and are bracing to contain them.

I know the Rabbi of Jerusalem and he is a well-meaning man. That however does not excuse such abhorrent naïveté. It is unpardonable that a community should try and use its brute force to squash vital investigations into reprehensible crimes. I believe most just people would agree to be locked up for a few days, even when innocent, if that would help keep actual child killers behind bars.

To offer a blanket amnesty to anyone wearing the garb is racist for implying that non-frum people kill babies and Chassidim don’t. Worse than that it is shortsighted because it is very likely that the father will eventually be found to be guilty and we will have shot ourselves in the leg again. It also proves that, on our list of priorities, protecting the good name of the community comes before protection of the members of the community and that is even worse.

On the other hand the very language of riot and Molotov cocktails used to be alien to the Chassidic movement and it is worrying that in the space of a week it has flared up in two completely isolated incidents. The causes are different it is true. The debacle in Jerusalem is a testament to our system of appointing leaders on the basis of their scholarly achievements while little to no attention is given to their actual leadership qualities and sound judgment. It is patently obvious that both are sadly lacking in this case.

The American riots stem more from a lack of any sort of leadership and are for me far more worrying. There is no doubt in my mind that a generation of Chassidim is growing up and learning to flex its muscles. It is a tight-knit and homogenous group with a very fast if less than reliable grapevine. The youth feels alienated from a society that thinks the official Jewish groups who claim to speak for all Jewry represent them too, while their real voices are in reality seldom even noticed. Needless to say it would be wise to bend an ear.

Oh My Goy

The word goy, in our community, has none of the connotations some of my readers suppose it to have. For the native Yiddish speakers on our Hill the word masks none of the hidden longing and jealous admiration that the secular Jews are accused of. The definition of goy, for us, is non-Jewish. The definition of Jewish is less simply defined on the other hand. Far too many Hillers define Jewish as anybody with a level of judaic religious observance above whatever standard they arbitrarily decide, but that is another matter.

Goy means gentile like boy means male human child. So when someone says to you “Listen here boy,” it means, listen to me male infant. If you happen to be overweight, fifty-seven years old, black and lesbian you might take umbrage but that does not make boy a rude word.

When a Chassidic property dealer with a messy beard and an accent thicker than his waist says, “My goy vill deal viz it.” with utter finality he is not denigrating his ‘man’ rather he is asserting his manhood. His ‘having manhood’ that is. You see everybody on the Hill can deal a few properties here and there but it is having your own goy that really makes you the man. ‘I’ll tell my goy to take care of it’ is a sentence you practice before the mirror before skipping to brush your teeth.

Each industry has it own set of goyim. When I was younger each of the property-dealing families used to have an Irish man. A Paddy or an O’Riley they could call upon any time of the night or day to deal with whatever needed to be dealt with, from a dripping tap in a bathroom, to a front room to chassidified with three fluorescent tubes or a grandmother that has to be picked up from the airport. It was an Afro-Caribbean in the eighties and Columbian in the nineties. Today it is most often a Polish guy with lots of drive, a big toolbox (with tools in) and the mistaken idea that hitching his star to a Jew will shoot him off into the stratosphere- moneywise.

The car salesmen all have a mechanic they like to call My Goy and even my washing machine repairman proudly proclaims his goy’s virtues above rubies. These batmen are invariably very well treated by their Chassidic benefactors who are more often than not completely baffled by the mentality of the gentiles they are dealing with. It is these goyim whose task it is to serve as interpreter and cultural attaché, translating English for their bosses and their bosses to the English. They understand fully well that while their bosses might dress like the Jewish version of a priest that is a sartorial mirage and in fact, behind the exotic exterior often lies a Londoner (pun intended). Forewarned and forearmed by the information provided by his goy the Chassidic businessmen’s associates can come to table with no unreasonable expectations and thus can business commence.

Come Pesach, the Rabbis too have to produce their very own uncircumcised member. Like the businessmen whose lives they covet all year and who lead and advise them in all matters, when it comes to Pesach each Rabbi worth his salt has to have his own goy. Originally the idea of selling Chametz (leavened foods forbidden over Passover) was instituted to allow businesses, that would suffer financial hardship if they had to liquidate all their stock every year, to circumvent this law. The ceremony involves a symbolic selling of the goods, which are stored in a carefully marked place, to a certified goy for the duration of the week after which the goods are returned to their original owners automatically.

Today in our ever growing frummity we all dutifully traipse down to our local Rav and sell him a whole pile of stuff that is not chometz anyway, like headache pills and washing-up liquid, but which we earnestly put aside as questionable because they don’t have the kosher stamp. The Rav does so out of genuine concern and also because each of us leaves him a generous gratuity. The Rabbi then performs the same transaction with the goy in a ceremony I am dying to see; Especially the part where the Rabbi verifies the credentials of the goy.

Happily, the goy is an awfully understanding and generous chap so he does not mind at all that half the town borrows from his stuff without asking, like when suddenly someone falls ill and remembers the Aspirin are in his box. As I said we might look like Rabbis but that is a deception and far from being goy haters, this particular Yomtov we positively love ‘em.

Protocols of the Meeting

I am sure many of my reader have suspected for a while that there is more to this blog than meets the eye. That there is a calculated mission hidden inside the innocuous ramblings of "an anonymous, thirty-something Stamford Hiller claiming to be a Chassid and regularly churning out his personal take on whatever he likes." That it has become so widely read despite the many who do not like positions taken serves only to reinforce that suspicion.

My use of the word elders to describe my leaders should have been a clue and They are right that it was careless of me but, as we have been taught all the time, most people are like sheep and created to have wool over their eyes. Did nobody ever wonder how comes a blog from nowhere gets so many visitors? Did they not wonder how comes someone sitting on the Hill and spouting what he sees for the entire world to see, has managed to stay anonymous? Did nobody notice that all those displaying too much interest were eliminated?

On the other hand the Elders are losing Their touch too. As a group who have managed to remain hidden for so long despite Their manifesto having been published over a hundred years ago and still available on sale in the few countries where Their control is not yet absolute, They were surprisingly negligent in allowing me to have this amount exposure without a minder. Did They not suspect that I would squeal if they tried to clip my wings?

It is not only my carelessness They are unhappy with either. It seems I have overstepped the line too. I have been using sarcasm, my Board of Control unanimously agreed, and that is against the rules. They make a valid point. It is difficult to pin down exactly what is being said in satire and the Elders, like most of our Rabbis, don’t really go for the whole humour thing. The position I was supposed to hold on the cartoons for instance was one of moral outrage followed by smug self-righteousness. When I asked for practical guidance I was told to watch the Board of Deputies and how they handled the Ken Livingstone story.

In truth I had been watching that and the Prince Harry one. I had questioned to myself whether it really was in our best interest to react like stuck pigs whenever anyone mentions the holocaust and our constituents don’t get a cashback. I had been asking myself for while if my mission of bringing the Hillers firmly into the hold of the Elders, like all the other Jews of Britain, was as good a deed as I had been led to believe. I had also, as the Control Board speaker pointed out, mocked the appointed religious leader’s style and that when They had worked so hard to get one of Their choosing after the previous one had turned out to have something of a mind of his own. The Michael Howard remark I was duly absolved of after I pointed out that I wasn’t to know he was Theirs.

But it was exactly the Red Ken story that caused me to rebel. I cannot for the life of me see why it is in the Elder’s interest to antagonize the man for a silly remark he made that is not even offensive. I pointed out to the Board that with the growing antisemtism in London (the Elders had promised it would be eliminated worldwide by 1950 - antisemitsm not London), not to mention the regrettable incident in France They forgot to promote in this country till a week after the event, it might be wise to at least attack him for his views we actually oppose rather than this pathetic media circus act. After all he is known to be a fair man alongside his odious anti-Israelism. They reminded me that I had been developed to write their opinions not to develop my own. They further reminded me that criticizing Them was forbidden and I was lucky not be severely disciplined.

I was ordered to stop writing but I shall continue as independent and if I am doomed I am doomed. By doing so I will prove that the Elders are not as powerful as some people think. Of course I will take extra precautions and if anybody pricks me with an umbrella I will have it checked immediately but I doubt They will feel forced to eliminate me. Most people will put this down as some Purim joke after all. Isn’t it wonderful to be Jewish?

I Wore New

This has been niggling in the back of my mind for a while already and I have alluded to the thought before here. Aren't we Jews just too nice to be taken seriously? The Muslims stridently screech for what they want, as unreasonable as it might look. By none too subtly, regularly reminding us of what they are prepared to do if they don’t get their way, they are shamelessly pandered to by, frankly, everybody with a healthy respect for their own hide, not least Jack Straw.

We Chassidim do not follow the Olympics closely. Most, I dare say, are not aware the winter games are in full swing. Certainly there is little enthusiasm for the Hellenistic ideal. There is indeed little trace of the Adonis in the fellow who shared the showers with me this weekend in my local mikve. As he massaged soap over his generous limbs he wondered aloud to the equally gross Neanderthal studiously shampooing his forehairs in the next shower what the point of the Olympic games is. There was a kind of triumphant superiority to his repeated mantra; “What difference does it make to mankind that some skier from Austria can go faster than anybody else down a mountain?”

“Yes. Does he deliver emergency medicines at the bottom of a mountain?” That spark from chimp number two proved he had understood the profundity of the argument.

It was a scrawny little Gollum who earned my respect though. He had been washing himself quietly and doing his best to melt into the background as some people do when those with more lung than processing power take the floor. I couldn’t help noticing wryly that only in a Chassidic mikve could a forty year old man wash his hair with Johnson’s Baby Shampoo and leave with his manhood intact.

“It is not about winning” he said and I smugly awaited the old canard about taking part. “It’s about losing.” He had everyone’s attention.
“Think about it. Let’s say each sport has a hundred competitors and you have fifty sports, that means by the end of the games you have fifty winners and four-thousand-nine-hundred-and-fifty losers. And look how well behaved and civilized that whole thing is.”

I think even the moulting bears understood. As I looked at that man his gnome’s forehead had turned into the dome of a learned man and his nondescript face had taken on the allure of a diminutive scholar.

There is, it is true, a certain dignity to being sporting and I do not feel our situation is dire enough here to warrant actively promoting a more active and forceful method of getting noticed. I am however worriedly watching the situation in Israel now with the new Hamas government being sworn in. Regardless of my positions on specific governments or policies in Israel I will not be able stand by and be silent as I see governments, who refuse to deal with terrorist organisations in their own countries, open negotiations with and support for a group who openly refers to the Protocols in its constitution.

In sport there is indeed dignity in losing but in war dignity is in victory or death in its pursuit.

Drawing Muhammad Out

I have a dream. Not quite a nightmare but still one that wakes me and leaves a feeling of angst and unease behind it. I am in a situation of potential danger. Say I’m in the path of a car and unable to move or something like that. The situation is dangerous but not intrinsically critical. As soon as someone sees me a simple action will remove the danger but suddenly I find I have lost my voice. I scream but no sound comes out. My rage and frustration come not from the idea of dying, I think I could cope with that but from the bitterness at being let down by a simple primal act like screaming.

The Internet has made it possible for the quiet voice from the back of the hall to become audible to anybody interested enough to go listening for it. People of a similar mind will soon pick up on it while those who disagree will soon pick on it and before you know it another voice has entered the fray. So where is the Muslim Shaigetz? Where is The Haramzada asking his community where the hell they think they are going with this cartoon business? Is there no dissenting voice, even anonymously? Are red beards better than black and white ones at keeping their subjects in check?

I don’t believe most orthodox Muslims or Jews really understand the concept of freedom of expression and speech at all. The idea you can hate what another says but defend to the death their right to say it does not exist in either of our cultures. There is no doubt in my mind that this crisis (even before it was hijacked by those diligently waiting in the wings for such an opportunity) has little to do with the actual cartoons just as I know that many normal and law-abiding Muslims are genuinely offended by them and that that does not change anything.

It is quite obvious if you hear the Islamic demonstrators speak that they have no idea how unreasonable their arguments come across to a western audience. “One and a half billion Muslims are offended because we do not allow pictures of the prophets already hundreds of years!” is the standard rationale or “How would you like to see baby Jesus with a bomb in his loincloth?” Then there are the others who come back with “Look how offended you are when we make a cartoon of Hitler in bed with Anna Frank.” If our society has not been able to bring home to these people why these arguments are correct but not valid for burnt out buildings and dead bodies then I personally think we should be out there braying for the head of the education minister on a plate.

Our lack of understanding is very possibly part of the reason we are unable to deal with their frustration. I notice that on the talk shows and other places where Muslims are represented the established media tends to choose the unthreatening and ‘normal’ looking spokespeople to represent the Muslim view. As an orthodox Jew I know how ridiculous it must look to the religious Muslim to see a bareheaded, comely woman and a suited, shaved and comfortably sanitised kufr sitting in a studio explaining that the radicals don’t represent the true Islam. So the atheist in a crumpled grey suit, a crew cut and glasses represents Islam by dint of being Arab and having stopped practicing? Gimmeabreak!

It reminds me of how laughable it is to us when our Chief Rabbi in his western suit and carefully nurtured Episcopal appearance goes on the record saying what an inspiration John Lennon was to us all. Not particularly offensive to me personally, I happen to like Lennon, but for many Chassidim “Imagine there’s no heaven …and no religion too” seem to have been far too much of an inspiration to him. So our comfortably assimilated landsmen smile and nod their heads appreciatively of how cultured and normal all we Jews are while my community looks on in bewilderment.

I remember too having my teeth set on edge by President G. W. lecturing the Muslims after 9/11 as to what real Islam is about. With his especially stern but earnest face carefully practiced he patronisingly explained that the fundamentalists do not represent Islam. Who was he trying to convince? Them? Are we westerners so arrogant that we don’t see how ridiculous it looks to a scholar who has been studying his religion for fifteen solid years to have an ex-oil executive who runs a ranch tell him what the nature of Islam is?

To be really honest we should admit that there is no logic to religion, much as the western kufr wishes to convince us there is. To a believer in the absolute truth of his cause the values of free speech and pluralism are pure rubbish and we might as well admit that. Two and two are four and I don’t accommodate the opinion of those who think it might be 177. If there is one God and He said, “See there should be no graven images of me” then what the Danish minister of culture thinks is largely irrelevant and the west would do well to understand that. The only question is how the believer should juggle his conviction with the threat of the legal system’s.

Until the understanding of our western values system and its inherent advantages develops within their community, and it will because it is in human nature to want to be free, western governments should take into account that it is impossible to force-teach abstract concepts and should stick to firm and fair enforcement of the law. Peaceful demonstration is legal so it has to be allowed but calls for violence should be dealt with harshly and decisively. Freedom of speech is not just designed to allow bloggers to cock their hoops at their establishment; it is a cornerstone of the western civilisation that has never before been questioned in the UK in two centuries. I, for one, do not want to go back to thought control under the Imams, the Rabbis, the Archbishop or the Prime Minister and I am utterly convinced Haramzada does not either.

Meanwhile the Danes have promised to print cartoons of the Holocaust that the Iranians are promoting in retaliation. While it kowtows to terrorist pressure it does also fall under the category of freedom of expression and in my opinion prostitutes have to agree to serve any client who wants to come (or doesn’t) and screaming can be part of the show.

And just for the record I personally find four of the cartoons absolutely hilarious.

Pavlov’s smile

My hands are freezing in the biting cold and the wind blows sharply and painfully against my ears, so ridiculously exposed beneath my big black hat. My obligatory navy-blue suit trousers do not offer half the protection of thick denim or corduroy so my legs beg for some added padding while my torso, under an overcoat, a long jacket, tsitsit (a fringed woollen shawl worn under the garments), a shirt and a cotton t-shirt vest, simmers gently. A group of my friends, all dressed identically, are walking a little ahead and I watch as they walk four abreast, laughingly oblivious to the other users on the street.

I observe a young lady out walking her dog step off the pavement into the road, all too aware of the startled jumps and scared avoidment she can expect if she tries to pass the group. She is wearing sneakers and pants and a simple winter jacket and she does not look at all cold. My friends say pork keeps you warmer than beef does. I wonder to myself whether they can pick out the vegetarians from the crowd by their shivering but do not bother to make the point. I acknowledge her as she rejoins the footpath and passes me. I smile to her. She looks surprised. She self-consciously shakes the lead of her dog and walks on looking back at least once I suspect although I do not check.

A tall Pole, new to the country judging by his typical haircut and brandless sneakers, warm as toast in his down-filled jacket and long woollen scarf, edges slightly away so as not to pass me too closely. His head and eyes, however, follow the orbit of our arc, watching me as we pass. I wonder to myself what would happen if I were to smile to him but do not bother as his eyes are by now fixed firmly on the retreating figure behind me. Maybe he thinks she is looking back at him?

A young couple walk past holding hands and laughing. I know them. I see him every morning rushing to catch the bus as I make my way to shul. He works for London Transport he told me and she is a trainee nurse. This morning they are walking unhurriedly together as if on cloud nine, completely impervious to the sub-zero temperatures. I smile to them and they smile back.

His nose is reddened by the cold and his big black hat sits high on top of his head leaving his ears exposed to the elements. He rubs them every two minutes in a futile attempt to warm them. I have often wondered why the Jews on the Hill wear their distinctive clothes as if the function of identification with the group were more important than protection from the elements. His long overcoat and dark pants and shoes actually look right for the time of the year if not the century.

He is walking behind a group of Chassidim who only acknowledge my existence to ensure that Rover does not come close to them. Do they really think I live with a vicious canine threat in the house? I have tried to explain so many times that he won’t hurt them, to no avail. I step off the pavement as I pass them neither expecting nor receiving thanks. He is dawdling slightly behind the other group and leers at me as we pass. I ignore him and continue.

I do sense someone staring at me as I walk on and I am sure he is turning back. Did Rover frighten him? He did not seem scared. Maybe he was interested in me or he wanted something. I turn back and catch the eye of a tall blonde hunk. He smiles to me and I smile back. It feels like a good day. Then a mixed-race teenage couple stroll into view and block him out. Damn them.

Bless His Ass

My youngest brother was born when I was about eight. In a time when mothers were still held in hospital for about a week after they gave birth and a gentleman of the cloth visited every second day. When nurses still called my mother Madam and my father was firmly invited to a compulsory chat with the family-planning advisor. I remember my parents finding that discussion a source of enormous mirth although my own experiences did not cause me to agree that children are the kind of blessing where quantity always counts more than quality and that only a typically delusional goy from a typically dysfunctional family could ever think otherwise. Indeed, if they had invited the blessings already produced by the union instead of my father, my youngest few siblings would most likely not be facing any of their current difficulties (or much else for that matter).

In a large ward, in the next bed to my mother, lay a black woman who had just suffered a miscarriage. Her husband, a big gentle Jamaican of the finest kind was considerately rubbing her back, holding her hand and comforting her in ways I had never seen my parents connect. My surreptitious but enthralled staring must have caught his attention because he interrupted his petting session to call me over and offer me a sweet. My father, ever alert when the possibility of straying arose, hastily jumped up to tell the man I didn’t want what he knew to be a non-kosher candy. The point of coyly hiding the fact that I would not eat it because it was not kosher I still do not know, especially since my peyos and enormous kappel made it quite plain anyway. My children proudly explain they only eat kosher and do not seem to suffer unduly for it.

The man beamingly welcomed us both and in his wonderful islands singsong asked me if I know my Bible. My father’s self-satisfied smile precluded me voicing my well-earned hesitations.
“So tell me dis, boy. Who kill a lion widde jawbone of an ass?”
He could have been speaking Island Arawak for all I understood. I stared at him blankly.
“Go on boy, you tell me. Who was it kill a lion widde jawbone of ass?”
I don’t remember exactly how the conversation ended although I do know that I had the urge to go to the nearest empty bed, climb in and pull the covers over my head.

What stops this story being my party piece is the sobering knowledge that even if I had been able to decipher his question I would have been unable to answer because I no idea what he was on about. In the school I went to and in the family I lived, the Bible was no story. It was most certainly not read for enjoyment. Moreover the story of the Bible is not told in narrative form except to toddlers. Certainly any tales with Dalilahs in are resolutely squashed; as incidentally are any references to pregnancy and intimacy of any sort.

I won’t forget the day a boy in my class asked the Rebbe why we only have to perform a bris on boys and not on girls. This was no call for FGC, rather a proof of biological naïveté. The Rebbe struggled to imply something that would not count as him teaching the boy shmutz but would still serve to jog his memory. He could not because the kid was obviously obviously genitally clueless. The reasonable thing to do would have been for the Rebbe to tell him to wait after the lesson and have a couple of quiet words, but perish the thought. The entire class was a titter and I have no doubt the place behind the toilets in the playground was busy the next playtime.

I know there were boys in my class to whom learning and being good came naturally. For them it was a pleasure to know at what age Yocheved begat Miram and how many times the word 'if' occurs in any given parsha. They were proud to be able to inform Daddy, over the Shabbat dinner table, how the Abrahamic bris was the catalyst for all the holy abstinence of future generations. The fact they had no idea what they were spouting deterred them not an iota. Me? I was staring out of the window dreaming of belonging to a religion where guys killed lions widde jawbone of an ass.

T.S.

The Epicurious

I do sometimes enjoy the holiday season. I find myself swept along by the, acknowledgedly phoney but still comforting, piped cheer that I, as one unfettered by the present-buying mania, can uniquely and wholeheartedly enjoy. Still every now and then I am rudely reminded that, as within our little bubbleworld, I am sometimes more like a tourist than a citizen in this temporarily cheerful landscape.

We orthodox Jews do not celebrate start of the new year in January. There are those that claim that we don’t really celebrate anything at all, in the sense that our friends and neighbours from outside the community do. I think even the most fervent chassid will agree that, spirituality aside, our festivals are marginally less colourful and miles less fun than the secular variety. Although it is true, spirits, albeit of vastly differing sorts, do feature highly in both universes. The other thing the two holidays have in common, in our consumer societies at least, is the obsession with food. Indeed for the New Years lunch I attended with my goyish colleagues I had the specially briefed chef prepare, under the beady eye of a highly unsanitary looking mashgiach (kosher supervisor), the very same festive salad my wife served with the meat on our New Years eve:

In a dry pan over a low flame toast a big handful of pine nuts, shaking continually until they are evenly and lightly browned then stand them aside to cool. Add some light frying oil to the pan and fry off some cubed crusts of bread or challah to get some really crispy croutons. Leave aside to cool as well. Next, deseed half of a large and very red pomegranate into a salad bowl filled with baby spinach leaves - well washed and shaken dry. In a vinaigrette shaker or small container with a lid pour 5 tablespoons each of light cider vinegar and sunflower oil, 1 tablespoon of runny honey, a pinch of mustard powder and some roughly ground black pepper then shake hard. Mix together the croutons, nuts and salad. Pour the vinaigrette over just before serving and you have my wife’s perfect Rosh Hashana salad.

Almost perfect I should say. My younger boy refused to eat any of it because his well-meaning teacher had taught him that if he ate vinegar at all, from Rosh Hashana until after Yom Kippur, he would have a sour year. Cretin! Although I might be tempting fate here, I do have to point out that I did eat it then and it does not seem to have had any adverse effect on my year, although a purist might argue that this might have been the year my star finally shot out into orbit had I only declined those greens. Indeed it would not be the first time my religion crashed with my career and the fact I have managed to carve myself a niche and earn my way only serves to make me wonder sometimes, as I lie in my single bed at night, what I might have become had I gone to university at sixteen as I wanted, instead of the Yeshiva I passionately disliked but my father chose for me.

The mashgiach, sporting his festive melancholy, came over to me as I ate. He must have seen in me a kindred spirit and having finished preparing for me an utterly unappetizing looking plate of cold-cuts he had come to see how his raison d’etre there that night was doing. My company took one look at him and hastily vacated the area leaving me to finish my salad in the company of a fellow heeb.
"Is that all you are eating?" He leered at my plate through smudged spectacles.
"Yes," I replied stoically and prepared to explain why. He did not wait.
"Can I have your meat then?"
"Yes," I replied, "why not? You’ve already got my goat."

War Crimes

The western news media, having been made to realise that their anti-Israeli slant in the last years has led to a raised anti-Semitism, are suddenly carefully ensuring that their pro-Jewish content quota are filled. The BBC, in a clumsy though welcome change, again aired an extremely good Auschwitz TV series which sensitively but factually takes the viewer through the rise and fall of the Nazi regime and shows, in simple words and images, more of the horror than the all grandiose cinematic understatement of Schindler’s List ever could. In the last film in the series I saw some very real and serious issues raised and was made aware of some very disturbing truths about injustices to some victims and the privileges of some perpetrators that are still currently being tolerated or ignored by all - including us.

I chose the word clumsy before some of the other words that jostled to fill that space because I am giving the Beeb the benefit of my doubt. I feel they are impetuously rushing in, with knee-jerk, quick fix solutions to a perceived negative image of Jews in Britain, caused partly by their anti-Israeli propaganda, to play their trump, the Holocaust card, with the stated aim to show the youth how dangerous racism and anti-Semitism can be. The intended mechanism is to try and rekindle some of the sympathy the world used to have for the Jews as they watched them recovering from the horrors of WWII.

It might be partly our own fault that the goyim feel the need to dance around us as if on eggshells. Our brethren across the pond seem to have managed to find a equal, even proud, place in what is fast becoming the new Terra Sancta. Meanwhile we, the Jews of Western Europe have for so long milked the holocaust for all it is worth that it is small wonder that in the eyes of the gentile, victimhood has become our defining characteristic. The British are so afraid of offending our touchy community that even a hard-hitting and in-your-face, obnoxious comedy show like Little Britain, famous for its outrageously offensive caricatures, declines to poke fun at Jews. A glaring omission when you remember that one of the writers of the show and main actors is Jewish.

The problem is two-fold and we ourselves are partly to blame for both. The first is our insistence that being anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish are the same. In a special BBC program from a mosque in London a certain Sheikh Mansour, asked whether Jews and Muslims can get on, is quoted as answering: "I believe that the two can live in peace - but at present not in a natural state. If the weak people, the Palestinians, are forced to do something they oppose, it may work, but it cannot last if it is unnatural." An outrageous answer coming from the Sheik of a mosque in London talking about London’s Jews, yet the editor, tellingly, saw no reason not to choose that particular quote to publish.

The second is the fault of all the Jewish personalities and celebrities who hide or downplay their Jewishness in a tacit acceptance that a foreshortened member is not something one makes a big song and dance about. I cannot think of many current Jewish personalities or stars in Gt. Britain who do not either negate their roots or bend-over backwards to prove how Goyish they can be, only to spring up when the holocaust is mentioned to claim their part of that sympathy vote.

We British Jews are citizens of the UK, conceived and born here. We have our businesses, our jobs, our families and homes here. We should not have our positions or our fate automatically determined by either a state run by people who happen to be of the same race as us or an event in not too distant past - whatever its magnitude. While we might fervently support the State of Israel (or not) that too is but a mere opinion and the right to the holding of these is today the inalienable right of every man (or woman), is it not?

If the state-sponsored broadcaster wanted to create a more positive image of the practicing Jews in London they could be coming to ask us what we think we would like to show. Maybe a film showing how scared a 13 year chassid can be to ride the tube alone or walk home from school in his distinctive garb might be more to the point? Maybe a program showing something of the contribution made to Britain over the last few decades by Jews despite their mistaken wish to downplay their Semitism?

In any event forcing me to buy my equal and fully deserved rights with guilt makes me a lesser human being and that is the true anti-Semitism.