In 1966 I was sitting in yeshiva in Jerusalem studying hard and all but oblivious to the outside world, when I was summoned to see Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, former Chief Rabbi of South Africa, then retired to Jerusalem. He was a contemporary and friend of my late father and a mentor to me. He told me I should get a…
Prophets
Shavuot is the festival that commemorates not just the encounter between Moses and God on Mount Sinai but also the “revelation” of Torah. There are traditionally 70 ways of explaining (70 faces of) Torah. So how we understand what actually happened is, of course, subject to almost infinite variations, from fundamentalist literality through academic reconstruction on to absolute denial. And…
The Ronson Name
The name “Ronson” once meant shavers and nowadays, thanks to social media, is associated primarily with vapid “personalities” who achieve little more than notoriety. But to me it conjures up someone I knew since our school days together in England—Howard, who died far too early from cancer in 2007. I was thinking of him recently when I read an article…
Racism
The riot of Ethiopian Jews in Israel protesting against racism is a sad reflection on Israeli society. It must not be exaggerated but it should come as no surprise. There has always been a disconnect between the ideals of Israel’s state institutions and the petty prejudice and fighting against and between its minority communities. There has always been a distinction,…
Israeli Alienation
Every year when Israel’s Independence Day comes round, I always experience delight, pride, and sadness. Delight and pride because after two thousand years of exile, of suffering under the oppression, hatred, and prejudice of so many countries, civilizations, and religions, at last and miraculously, we have been able to reestablish ourselves in our historical homeland. We have contributed so much…
Who is to blame for Iran?
I was never an admirer of the Shah of Iran. I was never a fan of monarchies nor of autocracies in general, any more than I am of democracy when there are no institutions of civil society to sustain it. But Persian Jews owed the Pahlavis, father and son, a great deal. For the first time in Persian history since…