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www.jewishnews.co.uk
Jewish News 4 February 2021
Opinion
How about a proper dialogue, Mr Baddiel? JENNI FRAZER
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avid Baddiel, as is well known, is a prodigiously clever man who has used his deserved public profile as a writer and comedian to challenge antisemitism and hateful stereotyping. His Twitter biography, famously, uses the blunt describer, “Jew” — no more, no less. What you see is what you get with Baddiel, who, with his brother Ivor has fought a long and battle-scarred campaign to eradicate the term “Yid” from football chants. He has just published a book called Jews Don’t Count (see page 28), in which he makes a closely argued polemic as to why racism against Jews is so often ignored or brushed aside as “not real”. Non-Jews are fond of telling us that Jews are overwhelmingly white and thus cannot be the victims of discrimination — a school of thought repeatedly pitched during the dark Corbyn years. Baddiel is honest enough to admit, in
an article he wrote for the Sunday Times this week to promote his book, that “as far as racism goes, religion is — let me be clear here — irrelevant. I’m an atheist, but I think saying that would not have got me any free passes out of Auschwitz”. He is the son of a Holocaust survivor, so ought to know what he is talking about. And yet… Baddiel this week took advantage of his 727,000 Twitter following to pick up on the Jewish News investigation about Stamford Hill responses to Covid. He wrote just three words: “Stupid f****** frummers”.
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INSULTING PEOPLE IS NOT CALCULATED TO BRING THEM AROUND TO LAW-ABIDING THINKING
It set me wondering as to whether those three words were not, in their own way, just as dismissive and discriminatory as the largescale anti-Jewish racism of which Baddiel so rightly and eloquently complains. His comment — not, for once, witty or inciteful, merely knee-jerk — may have struck a chord with his many non-Jewish fans. But it left me feeling uncomfortable, no matter how much I may agree with the intent behind the comment. For the truth is that so many of us — me included — are too ready to lump all those in the strictly-Orthodox community into one amorphous, black-hatted and bearded pot. They. We tell ourselves comfortingly, are not we; they may have the Lord on their side but we have moral righteousness, which beats religion every time. And we, we tell each other and the wider community at large, would not dream of behaving like they do. In this topsy-turvy, Abraham-inWonderland world, we who are less observant are the good Jews, while they, who
keep the commandments to the exclusion of almost all else, are the bad Jews. How did we get to this situation? Not in a million years am I trying to make excuses for the truly appalling flouting of the rules, in strictly Orthodox communities from London to Brooklyn to Jerusalem. Each time I see a photo in the national press, of a sea of unmasked men — for it is almost always entirely men — I shudder. But I do wonder what message we are sending those in the strictly-Orthodox communities. Theirs is the demographically superior grouping, and soon there will be demonstrably more of them than of us. And apostrophising them as “stupid effing frummers” is not, in my opinion, calculated to bring them round to a more law-abiding way of thinking. I’d love to see a public dialogue between Baddiel and a Stamford Hill intellectual. In this plague year, perhaps that’s what we need: after all, Stamford Hillians are just as proud of calling themselves “Jew” as him.
No accord with likes of Kuwait and Tunisia AMJAD TAHA
BAHRAIN-BASED REGIONAL DIRECTOR OF THE BRITISH MIDDLE EAST CENTRE FOR STUDIES AND RESEARCH
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ntisemitism is on the march. From the Tunisian president’s recent remarks blaming the country's unrest on “thieving Jews”, to Kuwait’s top preacher Othman al-Khamees calling Jews “the brothers of apes and pigs” and declaring that the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s Abrahamic Family House should not be shared with Jews, antisemitism has been given a new lease of life. Recent antisemitic statements made by Al-Khamees have sparked widespread controversy on social media and in Gulf Cooperation Council societies. Al-Khamees claimed that the Jewish people are a nation of no faith, and condemned the construction of an interfaith centre in the UAE, the Abrahamic Family House, which will include a synagogue, church and mosque. Al-Khamees went so far as to claim that the three-in-one religious complex constitutes an act of “infidelity”. He denounced placing what he referred to as the “distorted Bible and Torah” next to the Quran, ques-
tioned the project’s motives and claimed the Jews are people of “no belief and dignity”. In addition, he uploaded a video to his public YouTube channel (dated 23 December 2020), stating the Jews can be referred to “as the brothers of apes and pigs, because essentially, they became like them”. The question is: how can countries such as Kuwait, which is considered a constitutional sovereign state with a semi-democratic political system that is considered a liberal constitution in the GCC, allow and give al-Khamees a platform to attack the Jewish people and the Abrahamic Accords in such antisemitic terms? Meanwhile, Kuwait continues to host thousands of US military personnel and contractors, many of whom are from a Jewish backgrounds. Antisemitism can be manifested in many ways, ranging from expressions of hatred and discrimination against individual Jews, to organised pogroms by mobs or police forces, to attacks on entire Jewish communities and the Jewish faith. Recent speeches made by al-Khamees are a clear example of antisemitic incitement. The Jewish community has seen and experienced these acts of antisemitism on multiple occasions. From the first accusation made in the second century (false claims that faulted
the Jews for the death of Jesus), the blood libel, the pogroms, the dissemination of the forged document commonly called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the Nazi attempt to carry out Die Endlösung (The Final Solution), antisemitism continues to take many forms. However, the Abraham Accords hope to bring change to situations like these. In order to gain true justice, radicals such as the Islamist cleric in Kuwait should be condemned and confronted for his antisemitic acts. Sadly, al-Khamees is not alone. The Middle East experienced another recent example of controversy over antisemitism, with the remarks made by Tunisian President Kais Saied. Amid a heated discussion about the ongoing political unrest in the country, President Saied casually referred to the Jews as "thieving Jews", implying that they might be behind Tunisia’s turmoil. Saied, a political newcomer elected in 2019 in an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, is no stranger to antisemitic remarks as he continues to maintain a strong antiIsraeli stance. During his campaign, he said that any attempt to normalise ties with Israel – which he referred to exclusively as a 'Zionist entity' – constitute high treason. Antisemitic acts have always surged to the surface in times of social, political and
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UNITY BETWEEN ALL IS VITAL AND THERE SHOULD BE NO SPACE FOR THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO FRIGHTEN US
economic uncertainty, such as our current global context, now made much worse by the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the fact that health authorities the world over unanimously agree that the Covid-19 virus originated in China, antisemites in Gaza, Iran and Yemen have found a way to blame the pandemic on Jews. During these times, unity between all is vital, and there should be no tolerance for preachers and leaders who choose to frighten or threaten us. We will thrive together with the Jewish state of Israel and stand against all brutality and racism. The Abraham Accords has created a new and different future for the Middle East – one in which antisemitism is rejected and harmony between all religions embraced.