We have just entered the month of Adar. It is the month of Jewish “carnevale” and the downfall of irrational hatred. So it’s appropriate to write about another example of the latter. David Irving, one time historian of note when he concentrated on facts, is, according to an objective English judge, “an anti-Semitic racist”. This is why President Ahmadinejad of…
Chabad Myths
The Lubavitcher (Chabad) Rebbe was undeniably a great man and arguably the greatest Jew of his generation. Many of his followers have done outstanding work around the globe. But sadly as with every large organization they have their crooks, their swindlers and their charlatans. Amongst their failings is an exaggerated tendency to maximize miracles the Rebbe performed (while ignoring his…
Olive Trees
Whenever I read irrational, vituperative attacks on Zionism or Israel I always determine to resist writing articles that are in any way negative about Israel. Or when I read articles by Ilan Pappe, a man so distorted by hatred that he wants to see the end of a Jewish State, I bite my tongue. Or Norman Finkelstein, whose book Beyond…
Freedom to Laugh
I am seriously worried that the liberal Western civilization of Voltaire, Locke, Hume, John Stewart Mill, Huxley, Russel and Popper is about to disappear. It is not because the Muslim “street” has been staging violent demonstrations, burning embassies, demanding that laws are changed, editors sacked and goods boycotted–and all this over cartoons of the prophet Mohammad. With all the honor…
New Life, Old Tradition
Now that I have just become a grandpa again (the sixth time) my total delight is tempered by the thought of another circumcision, a brit (nothing to do with awards). I am a terrible, terrible softy when it comes to blood and the very sight of it tends to make me weak at the knees. I don’t watch any of…
Hamas
In Biblical Hebrew “hamas” means “violence”. But I think we should be glad that Hamas has won the Palestinian elections. It is a victory for democracy. It is a victory against corruption, because under the old Fatah regime billions of foreign aid from mainly non-Arab and non-Muslim donors simply went into private bank accounts. It never ever went anywhere near…