Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Saturday 23 April 2016

Mo not Joe, Mr Corbyn!


(Spot the one-word difference here)

Nice try, Mr Corbyn, but the "19th century rabbi" you cite with such apparent authority in your so obviously barbed  Pesach message to Anglo-Jewry was not called Joseph Morris.

As you see here, he was called Morris Joseph.


Anyway, as you have perhaps learned from one of your as-a-Jew supporters, "Joseph Morris" (who in 1895 became minister at the Reform-minded West London Synagogue of British Jews)
" personified the Englishman who followed the Mosaic religion. He was determined that immigrant eastern European Jews should become part of the mainstream as rapidly as possible; indeed he saw it as their duty to do so. In the same way he was totally opposed to the concept of political Zionism, and 'abhorred the notion of a nationalist Jewish state' (Kershen and Romain, 116). Anti-Zionism created strange bedfellows: Chief Rabbi Adler and the Revd Morris Joseph joined forces to attack pro-Zionists at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London. In addition to his anti-Zionist beliefs Joseph was a pacifist and chairman of the Jewish Peace Society."
(That's a quotation from the entry on him in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.)

I'm sure you applaud his urging his fellow-Jews to integrate rapidly into British society.

Quite a contrast, that, with the opposite approach taken by rather too many among the huge numbers of Muslims who have migrated to Western Europe in recent decades.

As for "Joseph Morris"'s attitude towards political Zionism, he was born in 1848 and died in 1903.

The latter was the year of the terrible Kishinev pogrom.  It was that pogrom which convinced a Jewish minister in Australia, Rev Elias Blaubaum, whose lifespan (1848-1904) was virtually identical to "Joseph Morris"'s, to abandon his own adamantly expressed opposition to political Zionism and concede that persecuted Jewry deserved a refuge in Eretz Israel.

Of course, the Jewish anti-Zionists of that period were opposed to the Herzlian idea because they believed it pre-empted divine restoration of Jews to their historic homeland and/or because they feared that it would raise the spectre of dual loyalties and even endanger Jewish citizenship in the West.

It can't be assumed that "Joseph Morris" would have remained an anti-Zionist had he lived to see the remarkable accomplishments that "philanthropic Zionism" (which was generally supported by Jewish lay and religious leaders after the Balfour Declaration) had wrought in Eretz Israel, to say nothing of the decimation inflicted on European Jewry despite its loyalty and patriotism by one of the great nations of Europe (a nation that's endangering Europe's security today).

Again, an Australian rabbi exemplifies that volte-face, Joseph Danglow (known as Anglo-Danglow for his implacable hostility to political Zionism).  Happily, he had a spectacular change of heart following the establishment of Israel, as did the majority of his congregants.

btw,  I was amused to find this "Jews for Jeremy" Facebook group.


Gee, they must be hard up for members if they have to reach out to the "Jew-ish" brigade.  Those, I assume, are the people who find that a distant or reputed Jewish ancestor can be so useful an asset in bashing Israel, but have never had a meaningful connection with Judaism or Yiddishkeit in their lives.

The sort of people who might well transcribe Morris Joseph into Joseph Morris after a quick google :(

Oh brother!:

2 comments:

  1. another Labour scumbag http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/exclusive-labour-suspend-member-for-saying-holocaust-is-a-useful-political-tool/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And this is another scumbag fullstop!

      http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14438121.Video__Jewish_leaders_condemn_Scots_internet_prankster_who__turned_girlfriend_s_dog_into_Nazi_/?ref=trn

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