I am pleasantly surprised by the results of the latest elections in Israel. Not because anything has significantly changed, but precisely because, other than superficially, it hasn’t. The Jewish vote in Israel is divided, roughly speaking, between three major groupings of opinion: secular liberal center to left, secular right-wing, and the religious vote which supports whichever government gives them more…
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I spend a fair amount of time with Persian Jews here in New York. I really enjoy their warmth and joie de vivre. But the quickest way to offend them is to suggest that they are Sephardi! Actually, you’d get a similar reaction if you suggested that a Muslim Iranian was an Arab! The Persian Jewish community existed long before…
Raymond Dwek
I am not a great fan of “awards”. Too many of them are given for the wrong reasons to the wrong people. But here is one I am delighted with. Here is the official citation: “Professor of Glycobiology at Oxford University Professor Raymond Dwek has been honored with the CBE for services to UK/Israel scientific collaboration. One of the most…
Margaret Netanyahu
Margaret Thatcher was an incredibly divisive British prime minister. Personally, I could never warm to her. She was, however, credited with standing up to the unions. Although she had the immense good fortune to come to power as North Sea Oil provided the UK with a financial bonanza, she certainly changed the mood of the country from depressed hopelessness to…
Mildly Islamist
The Economist, amongst many others, loves to refer to Recep Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey, and his Justice and Development Party, as “mildly Islamist”. He has steered Turkey to new levels of economic prosperity. He has completely overturned the Attaturk secular model of Turkish society and he has turned Turkey into an Islamic State. What I wonder does “mildly” anything…
Massacre Of The Innocents
What the heck is it going to take to get an America to do something about its guns? For all that, I far prefer living in this dysfunctional society than I ever did in Europe. Still there is something sick and decadent in this country (yes, I agree, everywhere else too, mutatis mutandis). It used to be said that every…