Shana Tova from me ... & Corbyn ...

To my Jewish readers ...

Pass the sick bag, please.

Meanwhile, read the incomparable Howard Jacobson's new take on Corbyn's antisemitism here:

"....We know what an antisemite look like. He wears jackboots, a swastika arm-band, and shouts Juden Raus; Jeremy Corbyn wears a British Home Stores vest under his shirt and is softly spoken.  Antisemites accuse Jews of killing Jesus; Corbyn is an atheist and seems not to mind if we did or didn't. Whether that's because Jesus was Jewish and killing him meant one less Jew in the world, is not for me to say.  And - and - he doesn't deny the Holocaust...

 Mind you, he knows a man who does.  In fact he knows a surprising number of men who do. That he denies ever having been in their company - until photographs turn up of him rubbing noses with them at the gravesides of mass murderers, offering to show them his belief systems if they'll show him theirs - 'Gosh, they're the same size!' - should come as no surprise. You can't spend your whole life in the company of blood-libellers and holocaust-deniers and expect to remember them all by name...

I will spend my remaining seconds - I don't mean in life, I mean of this speech - telling you why it matters to everyone, not just Jews, that a man so spiteful, sanctimonious and obdurate should never be allowed to do to the country what he's been doing to his party...."   [Emphasis added]

BDS: Ben attempts a Whitewash

Remember this from 2013?

Or this from Professor William Jacobson of Cornell University?

 Or this from the amusing and estimable British writer Howard Jacobson? 

 Or this from the intense and sardonic Pat Condell?

All make fine points about and against the BDS movement.

As does Alan Dershowitz here:

And here:

And now, perhaps alarmed by Professor Dershowitz's triumph last Sunday at the Oxford Union and article here (also available here), young Ben White, British Israel-basher extraordinaire, has issued guidelines to his faithful on how to combat opponents of the unconscionable movement that is BDS.

Here's young Ben's attempted whitewash.

Expect it to be parroted by the usual suspects in the days, weeks, and months to come.

A Ray of Light on Jews who are “ashamed” of Israel

In his delicious prize-winning novel The Finkler Question the Anglo-Jewish novelist Howard Jacobson has an anti-Zionist group called ASHamed Jews:

 “The logic that made it impossible for those who had never been Zionists to call themselves ASHamed Zionists did not extend to Jews who had never been Jews. To be an ASHamed Jew did not require that you had been knowingly Jewish all your life. Indeed, one among them only found out he was Jewish at all in the course of making a television programme in which he was confronted on camera with who he really was. In the final frame of the film he was disclosed weeping before a memorial in Auschwitz to dead ancestors who until that moment he had never known he’d had. ‘It could explain where I get my comic genius from,’ he told an interviewer for a newspaper, though by then he had renegotiated his new allegiance. Born a Jew on Monday, he had signed up to be an ASHamed Jew by Wednesday and was seen chanting ‘We are all Hezbollah’ outside the Israeli Embassy on the following Saturday.”

The group is fictional, but it’s got its real-life counterparts, and not only, alas, in Britain. Such Jews – who of course make demonising Israel a central part of their agenda if not their raison d’être  –  are often dubbed “self-hating Jews”. But as Adam Levick observed not so long ago in an essay on the phenomenon:

 ‘To be fair, I always found the term “self-hating Jew” to be at best misleading, at worst a complete misnomer. First, because we typically have no way of knowing these writers‘ inner-thoughts. But, more importantly, I never thought that it was an apt description of the anti-Zionist Jews I’ve met over the years. If anything, most seem to possess a belief that they are indeed “better Jews” for being hyper-critical of Israel, opposing their own community, and rejecting the very idea of a Jewish nation-state.

Many seem singularly focused on being seen as a “progressive”. And, as the progressive movement has moved further and further away from identification with Israel – and, to some degree, further away from identification with Jews as such – the need to be seen as progressive (“righteous”) in the eyes of others, has taken precedence over the seemingly parochial desire to identify with, and defend, their own community.’ (cifwatch.com/.../the-guardians-anti-israel-jews-and-a-letter-to-my-teenage-nephew/)

As well as being models of lucidity and literary merit, British blogger Ray Cook’s posts are always thoughtful and measured. Not for him launching personal attacks, or making extravagant claims or wild accusations. All of which lends his opinions a quiet authority. His latest post is a masterpiece. I’d like to share some of it with you:


Why I’m an ashamed Jew

Yep, you read right.

I’ve had to admit it.

I can’t live a lie any longer.

I’m deeply, deeply ashamed.

Ashamed of being Jewish? No way. I’m very proud to be Jewish and a member of the Jewish people.

Ashamed of Israel? Wrong again. I’m proud of Israel’s achievements. I worry about its policies, sometimes; I’m concerned, sometimes about some of its actions and those of some of its citizens, but I could say the same for Britain and I’m still proud to be British.

So why am I ashamed?

I’ll tell you. I’m ashamed of Jews who say they are ashamed to be Jews or Jewish.

I don’t hear Palestinians coming out to declare they are ashamed to be Palestinian and denounce suicide bombs or missiles.

I don’t hear Arabs writing they are ashamed to be Arabs because of Al Qaeda or Sudan or Yemen.

I don’t hear Muslims forming groups of shame because of what Sunni does to Shia, or 9/11, or 7/7, or Madrid, or Mumbai.

I don’t know of any Ashamed Catholic groups forming because of the paedophilia apparently rife in Catholic clergy.

In fact I know of no other group of people who so often announce their ashamedness to be who they are as Jews do.

And you know what? It makes me ashamed. I’m an ashamed Jew who is ashamed of ashamed Jews. If that’s a paradox, so be it.

And I’m not ashamed to declare my shame.

Shame on me!

I don’t see why Arabs or Muslims or Palestinians or Brits or Americans or Chinese or anyone else should be ashamed of what they are because of the actions of a few.

If I’m ashamed to be a Jew because I don’t like what Israel does that is a form of self-hating, it’s bigotry – by golly, it’s anti-Semitic. If I hate all of a group because of the actions of some, then I am a bigot. And if I am the target of my own bigotry then I’m a pretty sick bigot.

Read the rest http://www.raymondcook.net/blog/index.php/2010/10/31/why-im-an-ashamed-j...