Where Do You Really Come From?
In the wake of yet another royal race row, Gloria Tessler reflects on where Jews come from. Where do you come from? No, where do you really come from? It’s possible that European Jews may have rarely been asked this question. Although it was put to me several times at school by kids who were […]
But who’s counting?
Daniel Randall critically responds to David Baddiel’s documentary “Jews Don’t Count”. Jeremy Corbyn defending a mural explicitly intended, according to its creator, to demonise Jewish financiers; antisemitic memes peddling conspiracies about “Rothschilds” approvingly circulated in left-wing social media spaces; Adbusters magazine, seen by many as having sparked the Occupy movement, asking in editorials “why won’t […]
Don’t mention the Green
Margaret Harris remembers a childhood incident that still makes her nervous about naming Golders Green
“No Jews were harmed”
Nathan Abrams reviews a new book about the work of the filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen. In a review about the Jewishness of the films of the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, it would be far too easy to devote attention just to A Serious Man. This is their most obviously Jewish film and probably […]
Jewish velvet – a touching memoire
Keith Kahn-Harris explores how his inability to tolerate the touch of velvet shaped his experience of growing up Jewish.
Atonement is At One Ment
A new poem about Yom Kippur by Gloria Tessler. At One Ment is to be an adult. To be an adult is to be Fractured, dissonant, Uncertain. Finding Footsteps in dark And silent places, Losing your way. At One Ment is to be a child. Graciously perceptive, Holding back tears That may hurt an adult, […]
Mourning a Monarch
In the wake of the Queen’s funeral, Gloria Tessler reflects on the intense Jewishness of mourning. Does it make me a royalist that like so many I was glued to the screen watching the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II as endless queues silently snaked past the coffin which stood draped in the colours of the […]
Mixed
Tamar Hodes shares her thoughts about her new book. I first had the idea of writing a novel called Mixed many years ago, when I attended a talk at Menorah Synagogue, where I was a member. The session was entitled Mixed Marriages and I assumed that it would focus on partnerships, like my own, of […]
Liberal Drippings of Pork Fat
Stephen Pogany contributes an exclusive extract from his book Modern Times: The Biography of a Hungarian-Jewish Family. Throughout her married life in Budapest, my Jewish grandmother invariably cooked with pork fat. She also spread pork dripping liberally on toast as a tasty snack for herself and her family, in open defiance of one of the most […]
Salonica’s Ghosts
Ross Bradshaw reviews a new book about Jews and Salonica. A number of Jewish people I know have found a few letters and postcards in Yiddish among their parents’ and grandparents’ possessions, sent by half-forgotten or unknown relatives living in Eastern Europe prior to the war. These ghostly messages from the past, in a faded […]