Chanukah: The Real Story
A year ago, Andrew Margolis gave a talk about the real origins of Chanukah to a small group of friends attached to Muswell Hill Synagogue in North London. Much of our best thinking goes unrecorded. On...
View ArticleBritain in Europe: learning from the long view
Everyone in the UK, and in London especially, has been waiting for London’s mayor to express a view on whether Britain should stay in the European Union. We now know: in the national referendum that’s...
View ArticleBritain’s dangerous new democracy
Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election to the leadership of Britain’s Labour Party in September has not been credited with the significance it deserves. It has the potential for remaking British democracy. That...
View ArticleThe end of Democracy
So, President Trump, then. He held up a mirror of brash, crude vulgarity to the American people and they saw their reflection in it. That speaks well neither of him nor them. He did, however, have...
View ArticleWhat did Trump mean about Charlottesville?
I’m not convinced that standard readings of Donald Trump’s comments on last weekend’s horrible rally in Charlottesville are sufficient. He was accused of saying too little too late, which resulted in...
View ArticleWorld War Three: Day 1
In the West, it was widely assumed in the 1990s that glasnost and perestroika—the movement for openness and reconstruction overseen by Mikhail Gorbachev—would lead Russia from the repression of the...
View ArticleA message to members of Britain’s Board of Deputies
Dear Deputies, If you have not already nominated a candidate to be president of the Board of Deputies, it may be because, like me, you haven’t yet seen a candidate whose ideas you find convincing. I...
View ArticleJews, racism and the fear of Jeremy Corbyn
There is an elephant in the debating chamber when it comes to British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the issue of leftist antisemitism that has plagued him throughout the summer. As the debacle about...
View ArticleHow many more times? Brutes don’t win friends
Last week a flagship BBC radio programme in the UK put a listener’s question to a panel of guests: “Are Palestinian lives as valuable as Israeli lives?” To Jewish listeners, this question is...
View ArticleAgunot — We’re a Beth Din: Don’t expect creativity
A British dayan warned last Saturday evening that an Orthodox Beth Din can do little to help a spouse who can’t get a divorce from an unwilling partner, and that new initiatives by the English civil...
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