Now that The JC and wider Jewish Broiguserati has cleaned itself up after its collective trouser-soiling over Ken Livingstone’s remarks on whether London Jewry was likely to vote for him, have a think about what factors play into who you vote for as London Mayor. Especially to what extent whether a candidate liking Jews more than another one is of any significance compared to actually making London a better place.

Let’s recap in case you sensibly avoided the outbreak of political loshon hora. Ken Livingstone upset some Labour supporters recently by making it seem like he thought there was no point courting the Jewish vote because Jews were too rich to vote for him. We say “Making it seem like” because as the Guardian report testifies, plus Ken’s own measured mea culpa also demonstrates, the remarks have been taken substantially out of context. He said lots of lovely nauseous things about Jews as well as this off-the-cuff remark to the gathered cabal of Jewish Labour luvvies, but in a mysterious act of selective hearing, they chose not to focus on that when they went running in tears to the press.

Having strangely ignored Boris’ track-record of dodgy views on non-Jewish minorities, not to mention the poor, protestors, social justice, fairness, the health of children, Inner London generally, and Earth’s condition as a whole, The JC leapt into action – accusing him in an editorial that had clearly been waiting in a treasured vault since the early 80s of having let his mask slip. Where he’d mentioned Israel before, he meant Jews. Where he’d smiled at Jews before, he’d been mouthing anti-semitism secretly under his breath. When he told us he loved us before, he’d meant “Muslim” not “Jew”. When he’d said he wanted to lower fares and reduce inequality, he’d really meant he wanted to cleanse London of all filthy Jews. “The Mask was off” and we’d seen him for what he really was. An interesting deployment of anti-Semitic rhetoric techniques in the name of calling out anti-Semitism – the ridiculous tool for which The JC has become renowned.

Another JC correspondent went further, making the hilarious further claim that she could never vote for Labour again in any election EVER – because as well as Ken’s comments, she’d noted that Jeremy Corbyn defended the rights of Palestinians sometimes. So, as one commentator under her article noted, if you’re Jewish, you have to vote for Boris and the Tories because “at least you know where you are with them” – even if that place is one where cuts hitting the poorest reigns, and the rights of the global wealthy and powerful are pandered to. Hey, if it’s good for the Jews, we have to go to that place. We’ll know where we are there with the Tories, even if it’s in hell.

Ken apologised – though arguably the other people at the meeting should probably have been the ones apologising for misrepresenting him. – and Brian Paddick did the ignoble thing of penning a spineless “I love Jews, me” piece for The JC, the digested read of which is “I met some Jews once, I spoke to some Jews once, I have never had any views either way on Jews, So Vote For Me”. The JC didn’t really like Ken’s apology, with Martin Bright writing that the decision to “eat humble pie” was “noted” (careful, nearly praised the mask-wearing anti-Semite there, Martin) elaborating in classic ‘what we say goes for all’ style that “Though the Jewish community will never take him to their heart, some may at least give him credit for admitting he was wrong.” However would we in this singular COMMUNITY think for ourselves without you telling us what we truly know in our heart of hearts, Mr. Bright

Meanwhile, Jonathan Freedland disappointingly peddled the same line, and it’s this that’s really got our goat. Jonathan F wrote that

“The meeting that night was packed with people who desperately wanted Livingstone to reassure them they could vote Labour. One explicitly said he sought no recantation of past remarks nor a change of position on Israel, just reassurance that “you won’t put us through another four years of this”. Even that Livingstone could not provide. Afterwards, one activist told me he felt as if he had grown up in two tribes, both intertwined in his DNA: one was the Jewish community, the other the Labour party. Yet now he was being forced to choose – because Livingstone had made it impossible to remain true to both. People will wrestle with their own dilemmas. Some will conclude that only Livingstone’s policy positions on transport or housing matter. I’m afraid I’ve reached a different conclusion. I don’t want to see Boris Johnson re-elected, but I can’t vote for Ken Livingstone.”

So, Freedland and those in the meeting are telling us that it is totally impossible to reconcile being Jewish with voting for Ken. Or voting for, or supporting, any candidate, party, personality, or activist that doesn’t tell us how much they love Jews. Nothing else matters – as long as they kowtow to the Jewish vote, that’s it, vote secured. If they won’t do so, they’re anti-Semitic, and dead to us. Ken has opinions that could seen as Jews dangerously not being his most favourite London minority, so he’s clearly anti-Semitic, so we must clearly reject him. “Four more years of this” refers to not being treated as a special group amongst other Londoners, not being giving preferential influence over policy out of proportion to numbers, not making Ken censor his actual views for fear of offending us. What they’re saying is that though you might not like that posh man Boris, he does good Goy-in-a kippah PAs in Golders Green, so you should probably vote for him.

We disagree. Here’s some other things to think about – a city where the Super-Rich can run around in their own private playground without paying tax, with the most expensive urban transport system in Europe, with a chronic shortage of housing, with a Police Force who treat anyone with a black, brown or masked face as an almost-certain public threat, where a corporate locked-down sports day built on greenbelt land is being paid for by us for no local benefit, where an unacceptable number of young people have no jobs and nowhere to go, where air pollution regularly exceeds binding EU levels but where the car is king over all other methods of transport, where violent crime is rising month on month, and where any dissent is greeted with the hard end of a truncheon or shield. Compared to these things, do you actually care whether the Mayor is willing to prioritise the feelings of a section of Londoners who, let’s be honest now, are generally way above the capital’s average income levels as a group? Boris has made all these things worse, and however you judge Ken’s personality, his record on all these issues is vastly better than Boris’

Want to vote as a Jew? Then vote with what we’ve been taught about justice, equality and tolerance. Vote with what’s going to reduce the appalling gulf between living standards of rich and poor in London, vote with what’s going to give houses, jobs and justice in the city. Vote for what will benefit all Londoners in need, not who panders to the sensitivities of those not in need. The most Jewish thing to do would be to vote for the most socially radical candidate – which is why, in the only bit we agree on with Freedland, we’re also saying you shouldn’t vote for Ken. Rather we say vote for Jenny Jones of the Greens – and she really doesn’t pander to the Jewish vote. Vote Jenny first, and Ken second. But whatever you do, please don’t vote Boris. He might say nice things about Jews, but he’s a disaster for all Londoners, and it’s for the benefit of all Londoners that this mythical “Jewish vote” should be directed.

Our Jewish heritage includes a long tradition of reshaping society to help the least fortunate, from the teaching of prophets like Amos and Jeremiah, to Rabbi Hillel, to modern figures such as Abraham Joshua Heschel and Naomi Klein. It also includes a long history of secular Jewish activism, in the struggles for fair treatment for workers, human rights and environmental justice. It is in this tradition that we add our voices to the movement demanding accountability, honest and ethical practices from banks and global corporations, and a restructuring of financial regulation to ensure transparency and strict legality.

We wish Occupy London success in furthering and deepening the debate in the country, and hope it will be a catalyst towards a more sustainable, just and equal society.

Signed by

Occupy Judaism London

Rabbi Judith Rosen-Berry
Rabbi Howard Cooper
Rabbi Sheila Shulman
Rabbi Mark Solomon
Rabbi Margaret Jacobi
Rabbi Judith Levitt
Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah
Rabbi Richard Jacobi
Rabbi Shulamit Ambalu
Rabbi Jeffrey Newman
Rabbi Francis Berry

If you’d like to add your name to this statement, please email jewdas@gmail.com

Below is a superb piece of Radical Torah, a sermon by Rabbi Howard Cooper in support of the Occupy movement, given at Finchley Reform Synagogue on 30th October 2011.

So: are you part of the 1%? Or are you part of the 99%? Are you someone who has a major responsibility in business, or for the country’s economic well- being, or some other social or political responsibility for the lives of citizens in the UK, someone with real power – and probably with an income to match, an income and savings and investments where you don’t have to worry what happens in the euro zone, because – well because you are part of the 1%? If you are, then I wish you well, but you probably won’t be interested in what I have to say. You can have a snooze now – or go and stretch your legs.

But if you are part of the 99%, and you feel the everyday anxieties about your income, or your savings, or your job, if you feel worried for your future or that of your children, or grandchildren, economically, environmentally, if you worry about how you will manage if you get sick and your local hospital is shut; or how you will get an education; or be able to get a mortgage; or pay off your credit cards; or you worry about who will take care of you when you are old – if you have these everyday familiar worries, then you might just want to stay awake a little longer.

Because we are living through a crisis – it’s happening in a sort of slow-motion car-crash way – but it is a crisis. I was down at St.Paul’s this week, in the City, I spent some time there, mostly in the rain, trying to absorb what is going on, what this Occupy London movement is about, trying not to let my mind be filled with how the media are representing it, but seeing for myself, talking to people, wandering round the site into the educational centre and the multi- faith centre and the media centre and the volunteer-run kitchens and the legal aid centre and the entertainment centre and the first-aid centre – I use the word centre but actually I should say tent, because all of these centres of activity are under canvas, (well, polyurethane, to be accurate), but anyway, tents large and small, spread out higgledy-piggledy and yet in a curiously tidy way, around the Cathedral, with clear and safe access to and from the building for those who want to use it. And a lot of good-natured conversations going on, between camera-wielding visitors and those living there or just giving up time to be there – academics and lawyers, teachers and the unemployed, young and old, sober suits in earnest conversation with dreadlocks and grunge – discussions serious and jovial , with the great religious building providing a backdrop – and a silent commentary (apart from the bells) – on the social and political issues at stake for all of us, but being given specific attention by the inhabitants of these makeshift booths plastered with posters and quotations and lists of daily events, discussions and lectures and films on worthy issues like the dangers of deep-sea oil drilling or political oppression in South America or the implications of the savage cuts to legal aid in the UK. It’s a new hybrid, a cross between politics and street theatre, an on-going act of performance art that, like all art, wants to change the world – or perhaps, less grandiosely, just help us see the world differently.

Trying to see the world differently, trying to live out certain ethical values, is of course a Jewish preoccupation, a Jewish meshuggas, a stubborn refusal to accept the world as it is, a stubborn belief that we could live in better and more life-enhancing ways. During Sukkot there was a Jewish tent, a sukkah, offering hospitality; and on Simchat Torah dancing and song; and a Shabbat service is planned. Jews have been bringing their values into the mix – and they bring their humour.

‘Now is the Winter of our Discount Tents’ reads one banner – humour being one of the hallmarks of this gathering in the centre of London, along with civility and co-operation and a principled spirit of commitment not to inconvenience those who live in the area or work in the area or who have businesses in the area. It was all curiously tidy – not a scrap of litter and large recycling bins at the very centre of the encampment. And the talk was of a range of issues – political and environmental and economic – and the commitment to try and create a particular form of community. And to my surprise there seemed a lot of respect, praise, for the church officials and workers who have been involved with them this last fortnight – this was before Giles Fraser’s principled resignation on Thursday – and, again surprisingly, what seemed a mutual respect (muted but apparent) between the police and the protesters. Though they say they are not protesters, but resisters.

And what they are resistant to is encapsulated in one of the largest banners on the site: ‘Capitalism is Crisis’ it reads; which as a slogan is pretty naff, and simplistic, just as this rhetoric of the 1% and 99% is also naff and simplistic – though that began in San Francisco, so say no more… But although we might be sceptical about these as slogans, as propaganda for a cause they are pretty effective: maybe they do provoke us to think more deeply, more rigorously, about what is going on in relation to the values we live by; and how we organise ourselves in societies; and the systemic failures we have to endure.

You see I don’t agree that Capitalism is Crisis: it might be in crisis but Judaism traditionally didn’t disparage wealth creation – it just insisted (regularly and rather boringly) that when wealth had been generated it needed to be distributed fairly, equitably, that spreading justice was a higher value than accumulating wealth, that charity was an obligation, that with wealth comes responsibility; that a society that neglected the poor, the widow, the orphan, the outsider, that deprived them of the means to live with dignity, that refused to listen to their cries for help, their needs, their well-being – that such a society where wealth was generated but not used for the good of all, that kind of society was – to use a traditional word – sinful. And, as both the Torah and the prophets intuited, such societies were doomed, would in the end be destroyed (from the outside), or destroy themselves.

I was very impressed by what I saw this week, more than impressed, I would say I was rather inspired. It is easy to poke fun at this gathering, it’s easy to be a bit scared (as I felt for moments) by the otherness of people, the way they look, the way they sound – you inevitably get people at these kind of open gatherings with a variety of mental health problems – but what was inspirational was the tolerance I saw, the kindness, the commitment to a laborious form of collective decision-making: meetings open to everyone at 1 pm and 7 pm each day with a slow process of listening and speaking and respecting different views until some coherent consensus was achieved – that’s a commitment to a particular kind of inter-personal respect; it’s a commitment that unites a secular belief in the dignity of the individual with a religious belief in the holiness of each human being.

And percolating through it all, what is inspirational is the passion on display for a different model of living together in community. And yes it is easy to be sceptical and dismissive of this as naive – or to condemn it as some of the tabloids and Tory MPs have done, as hypocritical because some of these people have a coffee at Starbucks, or charge their mobile phones there, but this smug moral point-scoring quite misses the point. And the point is that all around the world this year, there have been groups coming together, for one- off events or day after day – 400,000 in Tel Aviv in August on the streets demanding of the Israeli government a fairer ordering of society, prioritising jobs and homes and education and care of the elderly – people gathering in 900 cities world-wide this month, and they are not all saying ‘Capitalism is Crisis’ but they are all responding to global capitalism being in crisis.

The Tower of Babel story that Barbara read to us is a mythic story, but a myth can contain powerful truth if you know how to read it right, if you listen in to its message, to what is hidden inside its fairytale-like exterior. And the Tower of Babel is a story that speaks about what is happening now, it tells us about a society that ‘had the same language and the same words’ and the people said:

‘Come on, let’s all build a city with a tower that reaches to heaven’ – literally a skyscraper – ‘and let’s make a name for ourselves…’

And this is what we have done, more powerfully than ever before in the history of this planet – the same language, the same words, whether you in London or Berlin, New York or Brussels or Beijing: ‘globalisation, economic growth, free-market turbo-capitalism, deregulation, consumerism based on the manufacture of desire’ – this is what we have built over the last fifty years (and more). This is the name of the game – and what a name we have made for ourselves.

You go up to Hampstead Heath and look out over the city, this wonderful, awesome, awful city of ours, London, and you survey the thrusting Canary Wharf-Gherkin-Shardification of our skyline, all that glitter and glass and phallic cold steel – and you don’t have to be the God of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, to think: no good will come of all this, the omnipotent building and the idolisation of growth; and you don’t have to be the Holy One of Israel to think: who do these people think they are, playing god with people’s lives? There is an extraordinary story in the Jewish tradition, a midrash about the Tower of Babel, where the rabbis said that the Tower had seven levels on its east side and seven on its west side: builders brought the bricks up one side and then came down the other. And if a person slipped and fell down and died, nobody paid any attention and the work went on. But if a brick fell down, everyone stopped working and wept: ‘OMG, they said – Woe is us! How, when, are we going to get another brick to replace it!’
So you don’t have to be a Marxist critic of capitalism to see what is going on in this story. Two thousand years ago the rabbis were aware that people were quite ready to put the projects of empire-building before care for people, for individuals. Building the brand becomes more important than the conditions of the workers. Profit margins take precedence over alleviating poverty. It’s a universal story and it has led us in our own times into a profound crisis.
But this time no God is going to look down and destroy the project and scatter the people and confound their language. We are the gods now – or think we are – Anya read about the sun and the moon and the stars in another part of our mythic narrative from the Book of Genesis, a story wrestling with the mystery of how did they come to be here, these celestial bodies, how did they come into existence, how is it that we live just the right distance from the sun – 93,000,000 miles – not too hot, not too cold, that we can live at all on the fragile surface of this tiny planet in the middle of nowhere; how can that be, how can that possibly be?

And we , who have become the gods now – or think we are – we have a universal language now, just like in the story of the Tower of Babel, and with this language of science and technology – on which of course the global markets now depend – we can measure the heat of the sun, and we can land a man on the moon, and we can see pictures in wonderful colour and awesome detail of stars being born and stars dying: we can do all this miraculous stuff, we have build a civilisation brick by brick, with information added to information, a world solid and towering and magnificent – and I don’t decry it, because I wouldn’t want to live in a world without penicillin or be operated on with a carving knife – so we have build this world with towers of knowledge and expertise; but we can’t yet care, we still don’t care, for those who fall off the edge, who depend for their homes and their well-being, and their very lives sometimes, who depend on the politicians and wealth-creators to devise ways of sharing it – more equally, more justly, more compassionately. If we can put men on the moon and capture the birth of stars, surely we can use our ingenuity to prevent one fifth of the children in this country living in poverty.

And those protestors, resisters, are saying: We can do this, if there is the will to do it, we can do things better, we can pay attention to those who fall off the project. And around the world there are many, many who fall off, who slip out of sight, who are exploited and abused and used for the sake of the Babel projects of profit and consumption. We can do it differently, we need to do it differently, and the challenge for Anya’s generation growing up in this world – and the majority of those I saw at St Paul’s were young (but then most people look young to me these days) – the challenge is to do it differently, to do it better. They are not going to have any choice – because the Tower is tottering, and when it falls, who will have the energy, the experience, the wisdom, to re- build on more secure foundations, on more deep-rooted human values?

Those people in those tents may be gone by Christmas, by choice or by eviction, this may be an ephemeral, a transient occupation of the space around St.Paul’s. But they will be back, in one form or another, here and abroad, they will be back because they represent something eternal, something very Jewish actually, a belief, a hopefulness – what use to be called messianic hopefulness – that we can do better than this. We can build a society, brick by brick: dignity, justice, generosity, compassion, care, companionship, these are the building blocks of real community and a good, a godly, society where people are more valued than profit margins, where sharing what we have is more important than share options.    We can do it better.

In a time of austerity, riots, and a rise in the price of beigels, Jewdas returns to Cable Street……….

Live Bands, Film, Talks, Cabaret, Fascist Baiting and Revolutionary Borscht.

Live Music from:

Daniel Kahn & Merlin Shepherd – a mixture of Klezmer, radical Yiddish song, political cabaret and punk folk, accompanied by top UK Klezmer clarinettist
Klezmer Klub feat. David Rosenberg – songs of Yiddish London telling the story of the Jewish east end from 1900 to the 1930s
The Ruby Kid – Hip-hop and spoken-word poetry, influenced by the cinema of Woody Allen, the politics of Hal Draper and the music of Aesop Rock.
The Electric Swing Circus – electro swing sensation.Big band swing. Gypsy jazz. Thundering drum beats. Phat bass lines. A dazzling stage performance.

+ Stephen Watts reciting poetry of the East End.

+ Full film programme of riots, resistance and rabbles

+ Talks on Gandhian resistance, Spanish Civil War, Anti-fascist activism today as well as performance poetry.

+ Communist-Fascist Arm Wrestling, The Three Yentas, Live Guernica tribute painting, Cantorial Drag

+ DJ Notorious spinning speeches, 30s swing and hard beats

+…more

Dress Code: 1930s chic. Fascist, Communist. Yiddish Musical Hall

Free entry for all who were there in 1936! For the rest of you its £7 on the door and £5 if you book in advance HERE

Saturday October 1st
from 8.30pm

Jamboree
Cable Street Studios
566 Cable Street,
London E1W 3HB

£5 advance, £7 on the door.

Buy advance tickets here.

supported by Bet Klal Yisrael

There was a quote from Reform movement chairman Stephen Moss saying that, the appointment of the chief rabbi had been discussed with Mr Pack’s predecessor, and “all agreed that this was a matter for the United Synagogue” Considering no offer had actually been made, hardly therefore a rejection of the offer. The closest anyone got to a ‘rejection’ of such an idea was a quote by Danny Rich, the chief executive of Liberal Judaism who stated that, “I cannot imagine any circumstances in which a Liberal Jewish representative would be authorised to sit on a panel to select the United Synagogue chief rabbi,”

The anomaly of course is that the chief rabbi is the chief rabbi of the United Synagogue and not actually formally the representative or leader of all Jews in the United Kingdom.

So well done to the JC for upholding enviable journalistic standards. Well done for featuring an article about Reform Jews rejecting an offer that hadn’t actually been made, and given the history of splits between the Reform and Orthodox communities, well done for putting such a divisive and inaccurate headline on your front page.

Our dating agency, “Desperate Jews For Lapsed Catholics” (DJLC), is specially designed to provide the perfect Catholic boy/girl for you and there is every reason to use us, too! It really is a match made in Shiksa and Shaygetz heaven. Just think of all the values , traditions, and complexes, we have in common, all which make for healthy loving relationships (and great debates on Seder night!)

Our communities both worship dead men, endure guilt and shame over sex and masturbation, partake in obsessive repetitive chanting of phrases in ancient tongue, hold irrational beliefs about the transformative nature of food (wine into blood, bread into flesh, the laws of chemistry and calories not applying to food eaten on the Sabbath), and of course that wondrous head gear, dress and general strange adornments which are defining features of both our communities. These are all just some amongst the  many reasons why our members find their Bashert through us….and of course don’t forget the bonus of  decreasing the risk of spreading those nasty genetic diseases,  avoiding broiguses over a “get”, and  to top it all off….. treif sex is just better when you don’t have to worry about ritual purity laws!

We even have an elite membership option, “ Catholics with Cash”. Sign up to this and you will have special access to our single, sexy Catholic doctors, lawyers and accountants. This will be certain to placate those super fussy parents with at least one of their necessary criteria!

If you are interested and would like to join DJLC please email Mrs Fleischig-Milkeg at:  welovethevatican@jewmail.co.uk

The report highlights the fact that 3 ‘allegedly’ anti-Semitic events took place in the last calendar year, with 2 in the latter half of the year – a rise of 50% on the 6 months before. In particular the report focuses upon incidents in which Parking Attendants are allegedly abusive.

Head of Parking Enforcent at Hackney Council, Colin Block said, “we take all incidents of racial abuse fairly seriously. We have conducted a full investigation into each incident, holding extensive interviews with the relevant civil enforcement officer [Parking Attendant] about the incident, their past disciplinary record, and examples of where they have contributed to the success of a group in the past.”

In one incident highlighted by the report, it was alleged that a Stamford Hill resident showed a Parking officer that his ticket had not yet expired and threatened to make a formal complaint. Allegedly the Parking Officer responded: “Listen rabbit hat, why don’t you go back to Vilna? If you don’t, I am going to get a job in a Telma Chicken soup factory, and crumble ground up bacon into the mixture. How are you going to like Grandma’s chicken soup then?”

Colin Block acknowledged that such a complaint had been made, but said “It would be inappropriate to comment on individual cases.” He added that he found it “unlikely” a parking attendant would have made such specific comments about things like the material of particular items of clothing, the history of Eastern European Jewish migration, the manufacturer of chicken soup, kosher ingredients and who in the family is likely to cook the chicken soup. “Generally, with obvious counter examples, non Jewish people are much less interested in the details of everyday Jewish life than Jews themselves.” He added that, “While we seek to investigate all complaints thoroughly, we also have to ensure that we are fair to staff, particularly those who have had an exemplary disciplinary record.”

JPR’s Executive Director, Jon Boyden responded to Block by arguing that, “there is a Catch-22 situation. If the Parking Attendant is found not guilty, then, the incident is struck off their past record. This means that when a new complaint is made, there is no way of assessing whether complaints are consistently made against individual Parking Attendants.”

Hackney Council alleges that people deliberately make complaints involving racist allegations in order to avoid paying parking fines, and that “A Civil Enforcement Officer with a long history of quality public service is unlikely to simply out of the blue launch a racially motivated attack towards a member of the public.” Hackney’s previous policy when racist allegations were made was to rescind the parking ticket of the complainant. Hackney claims that it has stopped doing this because a number of dubious allegations against Parking Officers were made.

“At the end of the day” Colin Brock said, “Jews and not just Jews, but also other ethnic groups are often closely knit communities, that tend to stick together. People disseminate information, such as loopholes in parking contravention rules telling friends and family members how to get off parking tickets, even if this involves dishonest allegations. The truth is we ticket everyone. That is all we are seeking – that everyone, regardless of creed or colour, gets a parking ticket.”

So I decided to stop doing the whole boycott thing.

I really didn’t set out to break any laws, I just wanted to do what felt right.

Like, Solly’s: I heard they don’t pay their staff a minimum wage, let alone a London living wage. A waiter can’t live off of tips alone in this city! It honestly annoys the crap out of me. I couldn’t buy a single chip from Solly’s after I heard that.

And what is it with ‘Kosher’ anyway? Those Kosher butchers and their self-righteousness. If I was a cow I wouldn’t give a crap if I was murdered with a knife or a stun-gun, I’d wanna just live! It’s been years since I entered Louis Mann or any other Kosher butcher.

And that J-Date! I mean am I alone thinking conventional Jews are just a bit boring these days? Superficial, narrow-minded and sometimes even a bit racist? The dad of my last Jewish girlfriend couldn’t stop going on about how his daughter had brought a “shvatzer” to the shabbes table. The only consolation was that I wasn’t a muslim, jeeze. I want to meet someone a bit different, maybe someone who knows their Adorno, that’d be great. I got in some promising conversations over Guardian Soulmates… but I decided it’ll only cause problems so I deactivated my account.

Maybe I should just accept what the JC has done to the community. I tried to get my parents to stop their subscription – I mean it’s only an anniversary present that they never bothered canceling. Anti-semitism and the Holocaust have been the biggest topics on the JC’s tag cloud for ever, and I don’t really think that’ll ever change. Not under Pollard anyway. So full of fear and contempt. Of late it feels like they’ve pointed the death star towards anyone who voices even the most minor of criticisms of their party line. I mean, why? No one’s perfect, right? I could go into some Lacan but, ah, I guess I shouldn’t. Maybe I have been a bit of a self-hating Jew recently, maybe I should work on my self-esteem a bit more, be a bit more like Melanie Phillips, she doesn’t seem to have esteem problems, though I swear she has got quite a lot of hate inside her. Maybe that’s what not being a self-hating Jew means: be confident in your hatred. I could do that, I suppose.

Anyways so I’ve decided to join my uni’s JSoc. They’ve got a workshop coming up on coping with there being Arabs on campus and I think there’s another one about transferring to Leeds or Manchester uni, where its safe to be Jewish. And there’s gonna be a shawarma shabbat coming up. Think they get their shawarmas from Solly’s, what can you do? I’ll try to grin and bear it. Maybe I’ll meet some nice people. It’s not always about your values.

Suspicions we raised after a series of articles posing as ‘investigative journalism’ discussed a shocking case of a person under 35 being discovered at the Board of Deputies. In a further shock, the individual turned out to be a critic of circumcision, or an ‘anti-shmekalist’ in the words of  ‘journalist’ Simon Round. The scandal provoked a firestorm of activity at the Chronicle, at the peak of which Jessica Elgot created an article from the first page of a google search. Not to be outdone Geoffrey Alterkaker ditched his planned article on the pleasure he gets when activists are murdered in order to pen a column entitled ‘If you don’t cut your shlong you’re an jew-hater’. Justifying its vitriol, a JC spokesman referred to the newspaper’s style guide, which makes clear that there are in fact only seven ways of being Jewish, though he added that three of those were ‘ a bit dodgy’.

The coverage, however, proved to reveal more about the JC’s editor than about the activist in question. In an emergency meeting of the Hampstead Freud society, Jewish psychoanalysts pronounced the JC’s coverage a clear example of transference and circumcised penis envy in which Pollard’s obsessive coverage of the issue was in fact a reflection of his own embarrassingly complete member. In a email, academic Daniel Boyarin suggested that Pollard’s compulsive hatred of Palestinians was in fact a desire for ‘phallustine’. A further insight into Pollard’s unstable mental condition was by revealed by Stamford Hill talmudists, who, on analysing his editorial, discovered that the first letter of each line spelled out ‘Sorry Desmond – Will you have me back?’

Pollard, reminiscing over the bombing of Gaza

Rumours spread like wildfire at the following Board of Deputies Plenary Meeting, which organisers described as ‘democratic’. Amongst break out sessions including ‘Young People – More Trouble Than They’re Worth?’ and ‘If We Give Women A Few More Rights, Will They Shut up?’, deputies held feverish whispered discussions, with each making excuses to visit the toilet as often as possible, in the hope of catching Pollard in the neighbouring urinal. To recall such a scandal, seasoned deputies had to go back to 1974 when Chief Rabbi Jakobovits was rumoured to be hermaphrodite.

Head of the JC Board Anthony ‘everyone’s a Judeophobe’ Julius dismissed suggestions that all of Stephen Pollard’s disastrous editorship was penis related, pointing out that ‘he’s simply an terrible journalist’. Others saw an opportunity for the Jewish News to conquer the Mosaic market, but they are currently preoccupied with a redesign, in preparation for their relaunch as ‘Sheitel Sluts’ , cointaining a free glossy magazine: JILF.

The matter remains unresolved, not least because Pollard himself has been unable to see beneath his waist since 1989.