Recently, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that a woman left infertile after cancer treatment cannot use her frozen embryos to have a baby. Natallie Evans started IVF treatment with her then partner Howard Johnston in 2001 following a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. The embryos were created and placed in storage. After the couple split up, Johnston withdrew consent…
General Topics
Rabbis and Imams in Seville
Just got back from Seville in Spain where I attended a the Second World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace. Strange that it was the first time I had ever been to Spain. It had nothing to do with the ban on returning to the land that expelled the Jews in 1492 (most halachic experts believe it has lapsed).…
Corruption
There is a spat going on in England over the fact that some gentlemen, amongst them a Jew or two, have given loans to the Labor Party and apparently, but not necessarily, have been given titles and honors in return. Let’s deal with the “honors” bit first. Titles have a highly disreputable past. Under the Saxons they went to whoever…
Happy Purim!
At the very end of the Megillat Esther (the Book of Esther we read on Purim) there is an amazing line that almost passes unnoticed. Here’s the context. The Jewish people were under sentence of mass annihilation, initiated by Haman and agreed to by a drunken monarch whose brains had clearly sunken to another part of his anatomy. Mordechai had…
David Irving
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…