Month: June 2015

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“Jewish” Antisemites

There are two types of what I call “Jewish” anti-Semites.

The first are vocal in their support of Israel and continually urge all Jews to make aliyah. This is because they see Israel primarily as a bulwark against worldwide jihadist Islamism, and the more Jews live in Israel, the more protection they have. With the added bonus that they won’t have to put up with Jewish fellow-citizens in their country any more.

The second loudly proclaim that they yield to none in their welcoming embrace of Jews as their fellow-citizens – providing they join with them in condemning every action taken by the Israeli government to protect its own citizens. Better yet that they should agree that Israel should not exist at all as a Jewish state, since humility and passive resistance are the only legitimate ways for people to assert their right to live in safety.

Sadly, I suspect that both of these types will be prominently in evidence in Golders Green next Saturday purporting to oppose the neo-Nazis.

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Always Comes in Threes…

Yesterday we lost three great men from the world of entertainment. Ron Moody was a tremendous character actor of many decades’ standing, best-remembered for his performance as Fagin in the 1968 musical ‘Oliver!’ Ornette Coleman pretty much invented free jazz in the 1960s, and is as towering a figure in the field of jazz as Dizzy Gillespie in the 1940s and Louis Armstrong in the 1920s. But the loss I feel most deeply is Sir Christopher Lee. In a film career spanning over 60 years, in extreme old age he reached a new generation as Count Dooku and Saruman: but or course he is, and forever will be, the quintessential Count Dracula. His tall, spare screen presence and rich, resonant voice have never been matched: for me as a child, he was the embodiment onscreen of all I thought a man should be. May all their dear souls be bound up in the bonds of life eternal.