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The Nazis’ British Blacklist
In advance of Holocaust Memorial Day 2021, Nathan Abrams reviews a new book about the Nazis’ British hitlist and who wasn’t on it. Around 1939, the Gestapo drew up a list. In the case of the Nazi occupation of the United Kingdom, some 2,600 named individuals were to be targeted for removal. They would have […]
Derrida and the Jewish Question
Nathan Abrams reviews a new biography of French-Jewish philosopher Jacques Derrida. Like Marmite, the philosopher Jacques Derrida divides opinion. Where some see a genius, others perceive a charlatan and a fraud. The English philosophical tradition is particularly opposed to him. But how did this French-Algerian Jewish kid (I use the term deliberately which will become […]
Dictatorships and Jewish Double Standards*
On Donald Trump’s last day in office, Nathan Abrams reflects on the curious relationship between Jews and so-called ‘strongmen’, the title of a new book. Jews have long kept ambivalent relationships with so-called strongmen, the subject of Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s new book. While Ben-Ghiat, a Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University, does […]
How Finland’s Jews Fought Alongside the Nazis
Mark Bernheim reviews a remarkable book about Finland’s Jews during World War II. In the complex history of the Holocaust, Finland was the only European combatant country in which none of its Jewish citizens were sent to concentration or extermination camps. In many other ways, too, the history of its tiny Jewish community is unique. How […]
JewTh!nk’s Year in Review
Given that we only launched in July, this will have to be a half-year review. Here is our roundup of the top five films, television shows and books of (the second half of) 2020. Films Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Was this the best Jewish film of the year? Technically and aesthetically, probably not but in terms […]
Dear Mandy: A Jewish woman, a Muslim woman, and an interfaith book group
In the second of these paired posts, Abda responds to Mandy‘s letter published yesterday. Dear Mandy Thank you for your insightful letter. I never imagined when we met that such a wonderful friendship would bloom, not only with you but with so many remarkable women. Nisa Nashim book club is so much more than a […]
Dear Abda: A Jewish woman, a Muslim woman, and an interfaith book group
In these paired posts, Abda and Mandy, members of the Nisa-Nashim West Midlands Book Group, reflect on learning from reading Jewish and Muslim books, and from each other. Dear Abda, Over twenty years ago, my Jewish reading group started, reading Jewish writers – mostly fiction, poetry, and memoir. We are reading our brothers, fathers, and […]
‘The Greening of America’ 50 Years Later
Martin Elliot Jaffe looks back at a landmark book and its enduring relevance for today. As a college student in 1970, I was captivated by the vision of a new America articulated by Yale Law Professor Charles Reich in his best-selling The Greening of America, where the ethos of enlightened, privileged middle-class college students were […]
Roald Dahl’s Antisemitic Legacy
Sean Alexander takes a deeper look at Roald Dahl’s antisemitism. There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason. I […]
Introducing the best kept secret of Georgian Jewry: The Lailashi Codex
Thea Gomelauri introduces the crowing glory of Georgian Jewry