I’m setting out my stall for the year as a digital Jewish activist focusing on Israel/Palestine. Whether I like it or not, my religion, identity and cultural inheritance means this particular conflict is my problem. I can either attempt to ignore it (not easy) or do something about it (also not easy). So, here’s my personal manifesto as a dissident, rebellious and awkward Jew in 2016. Challenge the deniers – I hear and read the following sentiments a great deal:... Read more
[The Jewish festival of Hunukkah lasts for eight days. The first candle this year is lit on Sunday 6 December.] So it’s Hanukkah and what’s not to like? Donuts, Latkes, chocolate coins, dreidel games and coloured candles burning in the Hanukkiah. Plus, an action packed story of how a band of Jewish warriors defeated a great empire trying to stamp out their way of life. It’s a terrific festival that our kids have always loved. They still do and they’re... Read more
Marc Ellis first came to prominence with the publication of Towards a Jewish Theology of Liberation 30 years ago. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said of Ellis’ work: “We will all be the poorer if Ellis’ voice is not heeded, but how wonderfully enriched if it is.” Not everyone would agree, especially many within the mainstream leadership of Jewish communities around the world. His understanding of Prophetic Judaism and his solidarity with the Palestinian people has pushed him into a professional and... Read more
The “Jewish Civil War”, “Empire Judaism”, “Jews of Conscience”, the “End of Jewish History”. Is this the vocabulary of a scholarly Jewish theologian or a lot of overblown rhetoric from a semi-retired professor of Jewish studies who’s lost the plot? Are Jews across the world really tearing their communities apart over the question of Israel’s behaviour towards the Palestinians? Are things so bad that we face the demise of Judaism as we know it and the abandonment of the community... Read more
This is just the beginning. The world’s most famous living author, JK Rowling, is against it. The world’s most famous living scientist, Stephen Hawking, is for it. Last week 343 British academics said they were for it too. They were joining more than a thousand British artists already signed up. The British Government is trying to stop local authority politicians voting to do it. And the Israeli Government is putting millions of shekels in to combating it worldwide. The Boycott,... Read more
My open letter to Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis Dear Chief Rabbi Mirvis I’ve just listened to the recording of your sermon at Hendon synagogue in London last Sunday night (18 Oct) at a prayer gathering to remember Israeli Jews killed by Palestinians in recent weeks. The key sentiments you expressed in your talk were commendable. There is indeed “an urgent need for communication” and “the healing of relationships”. But if that’s what you really believe then the rest of... Read more
Editors’ Note: This article is part of the Patheos Public Square on Moving Past Hatred. Read other perspectives here. A contribution to the ‘Moving Past Hatred’ Patheos Public Square debate When you start blogging about Israel/Palestine you can attract some quite unpleasant people. Some turn out to be Jewish, some are Muslim, Christians are in the minority (I’m guessing the unpleasant ones are just busy elsewhere). Some will profess no faith at all. From my own unscientific reckoning (based on... Read more
Palestinian pacification, Franz Kafka, the global arms trade and why the Boycott movement needs to change its strategy – my interview with leading Jewish Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper Jeff Halper grew up in the 1960s, and as a 60s radical he knew there was “a problem with Israel and the Palestinians”. So deciding to take up his Jewish ‘Right of Return’ in the early 1970s and become an Israeli was hardly the most obvious life choice. “I wanted to... Read more
The merits of being on multiple, and contradictory, campaign mailing lists is that I get both sides of the story on Israel/Palestine dropping into my inbox each day. Last week I was strongly encouraged to join demonstrations both fervently for and adamantly against the visit of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to London. Netanyahu was meeting British Prime Minister, David Cameron, at 10 Downing Street to discuss a ‘range of issues of common concern’ as the diplomatic correspondents like... Read more
We are entering the Jewish High Holidays. A period of reflection, of repentance, of returning to God. In Hebrew we call it ‘teshuvah’. Built in to the Jewish religious calendar is the assumption that every year we will lose our spiritual way and will need to find a way back to all that is Sacred. That period of ‘returning’ begins with the Jewish New Year and culminates with Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) ten days later. It is not... Read more
Writing from the Edge
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