Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG

JFS ruling: '3,500 years of Jewish tradition overturned.'

The Jewish Free School has lost the hard-fought case on the criteria for admissions to this sought-after school. The next step might be to challenge equality legislation itself, as the admissions criteria, found to be racially discriminating, was based on the 3,500-year-old criteria for judging whether a person is Jewish or not, fundamentally by the religion of the mother.

Chief Rabbi: fundamentalism heading our way 'with force of hurricane'

At Theos this week, the Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks of Aldgate, took on the neo-Darwinists in a typically challenging and amusing lecture with many points for debate and interest. The lecture is now available as a podcast at TimesOnline.

The final question, on which my story in the paper was based, was asked by the BBC's Christopher Landau. He has a knack for asking good questions. Long-time readers here will remember that it was Christopher Landau who asked the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams about the introduction of Sharia into Britain on BBC Radio 4's World at One, and we all know what happened then!

David Cameron invokes Bible and Martin Luther King

David Cameron's speech to the Conservative party conference was full of Biblical allusion, according to Paul Woolley of the think tank Theos. His reasoning is below. Archbishop Cranmer considers it 'mildly theological'. The Rev Rob Marshall, one of his clergy in Kensington, has also analysed David Cameron's social theology for Articles of Faith. Conservative Home live blogged the speech, announcing: 'Compassionate conservatism is for real.'

Tony Blair, change-maker

'Each was made to feel an outsider. Each stood out against the conventional teaching of the time. Each believed in the universal appeal of God to humanity. Each was a change-maker.'

Who is Tony Blair talking about here?

Answer below.

'Invidious' JFS court decision undermines Jewish community

The Jewish Free School is one of the most outstanding schools, probably in the world, never mind London. And it is free. Gerry Black's history gives an insight into its extraordinary merit. But the school has recently been in the headlines, caught up in the increasingly vicious battle between the religious and the secular. Faith schools are among the targets of both religious and non-religious who, not satisfied with having destroyed all but a few grammars, now want to topple one of the final ladders up which it is possible for a child to escape poverty, escape the enduring British class barriers defined by money and history, escape a life of under-achievement, escape all manner of horrors unimaginable to the children of the rich, escapes made possible purely by virtue of a good education, a commodity in scandalously short supply in much of the state sector. In the case of JFS, though, the issues are complicated by the complex questions surrounding Jewish identity in modern Britain, namely, is this identity a question of ethnicity, or religion. Various news and comment articles have already addressed this. Read Nicola Woolcock's news story in The Times, my own commentary, Michael Herman's Law Central blog and Geoffrey Alderman's article for our Faith page last Saturday. For an exploration of Jewish identity, I also strongly recommend Andrew Sanger's new novel The J-Word. Below, Jonathan Arkush, senior vice-president of the Board of Deputies, explains the anger in the community over the Court of Appeal decision, and Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, recent graduate of City University's journalism school, gives her take on the JFS debate.

Jews, gays, greens attack SSPX

This video from Gloria TV shows the recent SSPX ordinations, controversial because it was illicit ordinations that got them excommunicated in the first place by Rome, a penalty now lifted amid controversy over the Holocaust-denying views of one of the bishops, England's Richard Williamson. But as Chris Gillibrand reports at Cathcon, these issues are not going to go away. As Reuters reported, the ordinations went ahead, even though the Holy See criticised them as illegitimate.

Mendelssohn: 'When the Nazis realised he was Jewish'

Tonight, BBC 4 is showing a documentary made by Sheila Hayman, a niece by descent of Felix Mendelssohn, a devout Christian who was born Jewish. The Nazis banned his music of course, including the rather wonderful compositions for Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. As the programme reports, this is how he was described in the Nazis' Dictionary of Jews in Music: 'This has shown us that a Jew with such a rich and specific talent has not managed even once to find any kind of depth, heart or soul in any of the art with which he’s being associated.’ The programme will be on the BBC iPlayer for a week and will be repeated around the time of the Proms.

To donate or venerate: blood and religious faith

 

Guest blog  by Anna-Marie Julyan 

Blood has symbolic meaning in many faiths, whether represented by wine as part of the Eucharist or avoided in food, while others regard it as sacred. The pressing need for blood donors was highlighted by World Blood Donor Day on Sunday, but how does it equate with religious belief?

International humanitarian organisation United Sikhs launched a campaign to get “the Sikh community to pledge their share of blood” in the UK, Canada and the USA.

Faith Schools: 'Who but God could be so funny?'

A debate about God and faith schools in the letters page of The Times has become entertaining with the intervention of Brighton's stand-up comic Roisin Mirza.

In a letter published on June 6, Roisin, filmed here at the latest Funny Women awards, wrote: 'My mum was an Irish Catholic, my dad was a Pakistani Muslim and I went to a Church of England primary school. I had to go to Mass on Sunday, mosque on weekdays and once a month go to a Church of England service because I was in the Brownies.

'Confusion? Not many. The result? A catastrophe of careers until I became a stand-up comedian. Do I believe in God? Of course I do. Who else could be so funny? Religious upbringing could only be invented by the same joker who invented humour itself.'

Swine flu faith guide: 'You may need to suspend public worship'

Update: The revised Government guidelines for faith communities in the event of a flu pandemic are now available and the Church of England has published special prayers for swine flu. The Methodists have also issued guidelines.

What do you think this woman is doing, praying or blowing her nose, or perhaps multitasking and doing both at the same time?

Over the last 48 hours I've been receiving a few calls and emails from clergy and laity wondering where the guidance is for faith communities on swine flu, or perhaps that should be Mexican flu. In  the UK there are thousands of ministers of religion preparing for services this weekend, wondering what they should do. One can only assume the leaders of the established church are praying about it, for that would explain their silence. It does strike me as bizarre though that a national newspaper religion correspondent should be contacted by clergy seeking advice on what their leaders are thinking.

These are some of the questions I'm being asked: For Christians, should they suspend communion altogether, or suspend sharing of the communion cup? What about the hands of the minister if he has caught the infection, blessing and handing out the bread? In synagogues, where services are often followed by celebrations over food, should these go ahead?

No-one knows, and people everywhere seem to be in the dark about how seriously they should take this possible pandemic.

So in the spirit of Christian charity, I've done my best to help. Read on.

Deconstructing the Bible

Scholar and author Irene Lancaster this week launched in Prestwich the paperback of her authoritative book on the eleventh century Spanish Jewish thinker and Islam expert, Abraham ibn Ezra. Irene will be familiar to many readers of this blog. As Irene wrote in her introduction to a seminar on Ezra at Haifa university, Abraham ibn Ezra is regarded as one of the two or three greatest Jewish biblical exegetes: 'His oeuvre forms part of the ‘canon’ of religious Biblical scholarship. However, he was also a poet, philosopher, astronomer, astrologer, grammarian, mystic and seer, who felt it his mission to transmit his Spanish Sephardi culture to the ‘ignorant’ Ashkenazi Jews of northern Europe. In 1139-40, he left Spain for Rome and continued to Lucca, Verona, Mantua and other places in northern Italy. He then travelled through Provence and northern France, and finally reached England, where he is reputed to have been killed in an attack by ‘anarchic English hordes’ on his way up north from London.' 

Does any reader here happen to know where he might be buried?

Pope 'foolish or misguided' says The Times

This is the text of a strongly-worded letter from the International Council of Christians and Jews to Pope Benedict XVI. As we report, MPs on both sides of the House of Commons have today condemned his decision to lift the excommunication on a Holocaust-denying bishop. A second priest has now denied the Holocaust. The Times leader on this today says: 'The signal sent from Rome is appalling. It reinforces the suspicion of some Jews that Christianity still harbours latent anti-Semitism. It diminishes the Vatican's influence in the Middle East at a time of conflict. It makes the Pope appear foolish or misguided. It is a gesture that should be retracted immediately unless, and until, Bishop Williamson renounces his obscenities.' Cardinal Schonborn has also attacked the Vatican.

Stand up to Hatred: Holocaust Memorial Day

As we report today, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have denounced the newly incommunicated Holocaust denying bishop Richard Williamson. Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a message for Holocaust Memorial Day along with the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks and Dr Tony Bayfield of the Reform moveme They are discussing their recent trip to Auschwitz, which I attended also. You can also see my own report and video of that event. Below is a guest post from our regular contributor Irene Lancaster addressing these and related issues, some of which we reported on yesterday in The Times.

Irene Lancaster writes:

Shame about the Cross

In the Times today, Russell Jenkins reports on the latest TV wedding, in Coronation Street. The setting was the beautiful 14th century church of Nether Alderley in Cheshire. The vicar is incensed, reports Russell: 'It was not the absurd storyline... Nor was it the ornate horse-drawn carriage, the dry-ice machine used to create atmosphere or even the harpist in the nave.'  The Rev James Milnes is upset because the producers, not wanting to cause offence, covered up the solid brass cross on the altar.  I've done a brief commentary.

Israeli Ambassador condemns carol service

Update: now a Vicar has banned O Little Town of Bethlehem because he believes it does not reflect the true state of what is happening there. See our news story today.

As we report a diplomatic row is hanging over Christian-Jewish relations in Britain. Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor has weighed into the row over the St James's carol service, condemning it as furthering the 'canard of anti-Semitism'. The service was organised by Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and their reaction to Ambassador Prosor's comments is below. The Ambassador said: 'For 2000 years, the Jewish people suffered persecution because of the accusation of responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ. The carol service deliberately attempted to make a linkage between this notion of deicide and Israel’s relations with the Palestinians. It thus perpetuated an anti-Semitic canard that has no place in modern Britain.'

The full text of his comments follows below.

Chief Rabbi: 'A perversion of the Abrahamic faiths'

The Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks has warned that hate is contagious and called for the love of God to be invoked to defeat those behind the Mumbai attacks. Speaking to me shortly before a memorial service in north London hosted by the United Synagogue and Chabad-Lubavitch UK to honour those killed in Mumbai, he said that if there was any religious motive behind the attacks, it represented the 'ultimate perversion' of the Abrahamic roots of the three faiths of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

Lambeth Diary: Chief Rabbi commands the crowds

The Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks spoke powerfully at the Lambeth Conference last night, as we report, and received a five-minute standing ovation. You can download his full text here . Picture Jim Rosenthal.

Faithbook on Facebook

'Faithbook, a new social networking facility for people of different faiths on Facebook, goes live tomorrow,' said the press release yesterday. I'm sorry to say I didn't get too exercised. Surely this was just one more of many thousands of groups on Facebook, my own included.  But in fact it is much more than that, as our news story shows. Senior members of the nine main faiths, including Judaism, Islam and Buddhism, have signed up and are contributing to discussions. The group, set up by the Movement for Reform Judaism with the help of Simon Cohen of Global Tolerance, is also taking the scriptures of each faith seriously,  with illustrations and plans for analysis of the common ground between the faiths as found in the scriptures. See Dave Walker's interesting take on it in The Church Times.

 

Ata mefutar!

As we report, the Jewish Chronicle has today published its list of the top 100 people most influential on the Jewish Community. The omission of The Apprentice's Alan Sugar is surprising. But even more remarkable is the omission of Chelsea's Avram Grant, especially given Chelsea's deserved and amazing victory over Man United the other day. Oh how the Man U supporters in our house wept that night. How we secret Chelsea fans gloated. (You have to be a bit secretive about it if you dare to support Chelsea in the little enclave of liberalism where we live, even though it is technically our 'local'.) Read the list in full on the JC website here, here and here.

Comment of the Day 29 April

Welcome to Comment of the Day, a new feature in which each day I will highlight the best comment from that day. First up, our regular Irene Lancaster:

'Calling Pakistanis 'jewish bastard' was par for the course in schools I taught in in the Rochdale and Oldham areas of Greater Manchester (also near to Bradford).

On one occasion, I was called in to teach RE to the mainly white class. There was one Pakistani Muslim in the class. In order to taunt him to the extreme, his class-mates called him 'you bloody Jew'. There were no Jews in the school. The nearest the class had come to meeting a Jew was a visit to the Jewish Museum in Cheetham Hill, North Manchester.'

Read it all here.

Islam 'reformation' imminent

It is being widely reported that the leading religious authority in Turkey, the Diyanet, is to agree to an editing down of the Hadith, the books containg the sayings and deeds of Mohammed, and on which 90 per cent of sharia law is based. One thing that could go is the mandatory death sentence for apostasy, which does not appear in the Koran but is about to be introduced in Turkey's neighbour Iran. How likely is this, and what will its impact be? The Times' Michael Binyon unpacks it, below. 

CofE pays £250,000 for interfaith centre

On seeing the designs for Guildford's new £6.5 million multi-faith centre, funded partly by the Church of England, I had the same sensation as when first setting eyes on the groundbreaking ecumenical church of Christ the Cornerstone in Milton Keynes. That was nearly two decades ago, and was controversial in its day. Thinking back to then, a multifaith centre along the lines of this one would have been simply inconceivable. So whatever the doom-mongers are making of the response to RW on Sharia, things have moved on. (nb have updated post and corrected errors, many apologies, ruth)

Prince Philip's experience of 'anti-Semitic frenzy'

Mohamed Al Fayed accused the Duke of Edinburgh of being a Nazi this week. Our Times diarist put a little more perspective on this. But to lay this terrible demon of a libel finally to rest, a friend has sent me a document written by Prince Philip himself. It is the text of a speech he delivered at Yad Vashem in Israel in October 1994. In it he refers to how his mother, Princess Alice, pictured here, secretly helped a Jewish family in Athens. I've reproduced it below. He also describes how, aged 12, he had first-hand experience of the 'anti-Semitic frenzy' gripping NSP members. He witnessed the bullying of a Jewish boy at his boarding school in Germany and stepped in to help him. His lifelong contribution to interfaith work has been acknowledged by the ICCJ, with the award of an Interfaith Gold Medallion.

'Oremus et pro Iudaeis'

Under pressure from all those concerned to help put an end to centuries of Christian-inspired anti-Semitism, the Pope has amended the traditional Good Friday prayer for the 'conversion of the Jews' in the old Latin rite which he recently authorised for wider use. References to the 'blindness' and 'darkness' of the Jewish people in the 1962 Roman Missal have been excised, but the prayer still contains pleas for the Jewish people to recognise Jesus Christ and for Israel to be saved. The other prayers for heretics, pagans and schismatics also remain.  David Rosen  of IJCIC in Israel and David Gifford of the UK's Council of Christians and Jews were both 'saddened' and 'disappointed' by the new prayer. Read their comments in full at the end of the TimesOnline news story.

Israel and the 'right to exist'

Hot on the heels of its controversial David Irving debate, the Oxford Union is now hosting a debate over the question of whether Israel has a right to exist. Irene Lancaster, who has herself blogged on this one, tells me that Ilan Pappe, formerly of Haifa University and now a Professor at Exeter, is one of the speakers against the OU motion that ‘Israel has a right to exist’. 'Before that, the Oxford Union hosted David Irving and a member of the far-right British National Party on Holocaust Denial,' she says. 'Haven’t they got any better subjects to think about than Jews? However, this does demonstrate the close links that exist between the far right and the far left. If there were no Israel, does anyone have a suggestion as to where the approximately 6 million Jews and 1.2 million Arabs who live here should actually go?'

Secularists accuse evangelical leader of being 'unChristian'

It's like a joke, isn't it. A joke about the evangelical preacher, the Chief Rabbi and the secularist. At the Evangelical Alliance's Temple Address last night, the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks delivered a speech calling for religious tolerance. As we report, EA director Joel Edwards, pictured here with the Chief Rabbi, responded by condemning as 'intolerant' the outcry from secularists and the Christian gay lobby at his appointment as an equal rights commissioner. So now the National Secular Society has hit back, accusing Dr Edwards of being, of all things, 'unChristian' for attacking them in this way. It really is only a matter of time before a Christian ends up in one court accused by secularists of incitement against gays, while in the next door court he finds himself in the witness box with the secularists in the dock, accused of inciting religious hatred.

Girl, 4, recites Psalm 23

This is one of the most-watched videos on GodTube, the godly version of YouTube.

Anti-Jewish site on Google

A friend has sent me this:

'Dear Friends, We all have to sign a petition to force Google to remove from their websites list the website .... This site is devoted to anti-Semitism, hate of Jews and so, with false articles and research..It is one of the first website appearing when searching Jew on Google! To force Google to remove this website, we need to gather at least 500,000 signatures. We already got over 300,000 signatures. We need 200,000 more!'

To sign this petition, go here.

Atonement from Leeds at Jewish New Year

Happy New Year to all Jewish readers of this blog, to all readers indeed. It begins on a good note, with the news that Leeds University have rescheduled their cancelled talk with Dr Matthias Kuntzel for 10 October. His subject will be: 'Hitler's legacy: Islamic Anti-Semitism in the Middle East.' At long, long last, perhaps we are beginning to see an end to the long history of politically-correct diffidence over subjects such at this. You can read Dr Kuntzel's version of what happened at Leeds on his own website. Read also Andrew Norfolk's investigation into how more than half of Britain's mosques have been taken over by an extremist Islamic sect. Card from Ilene Winn-Lederer.

Faith in the system

As Alex Frean and I report in The Times today, the Government's response to increasing sectarianism in our society appears to bring yet more independent faith schools into the fold of the maintained sector. This is ironically quite Darwinian, in that it could be interpreted as a political acting out of the principle of survival of the fittest. Faith schools invariably achieve among the best results in the state sector, so they multiply in number. And Islam is among the most thriving of our religions in Britain at present, so is the religion that stands to benefit most from this, with dozens of private Islamic schools likely to become state faith schools. (Update: this was the first item on today's, 9/9, Sunday prog on BBC Radio 4.)

Faith in 'all things beautiful' at Chelsea

My favourite event at this time of year is usually not religious at all. It is the Chelsea Flower Show. This year, even Chelsea, like every other event, seems to have succumbed to religion fervour, presenting me with the perfect excuse to spend a heaven-scent day out of the office.

Blair to focus on interfaith work

As Tom Baldwin and I report today, Tony Blair on leaving office is to get involved in interfaith work. The Prime Minister, a devout Anglo-Catholic whose pilgrimage to Rome has long been anticipated, has for years been fascinated by this area. He wants to set up a new foundation to foster greater understanding between the three great Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Just for a bit of fun, though...

Government clampdown on antisemitism

The Government has announced that a task force set up last year will lead to a clamp down on hate crimes, in particular antisemitism in Britain. Prosecutions for antisemitic hate crimes will be stepped up. University campuses in particular are to be targeted by police as places where antisemitism has been thriving. The moves are spelled out in a new cross-government strategy.

Leeds university 'censors' pro-Jewish professor

A disturbing story today by my colleague Sean O'Neill, who reports that Leeds University has censored an academic who lectures around the world on the inherent antisemitism of many Islamic groups. A large turnout was expected at the series of lectures by Matthew Kuntzel, organised by the university's German department. I've always been rather ashamed that I left Leeds university before completing my own language degree there. Fed up among other things of having so few tutorials, I went instead to do an intensive vocational HND at the London College of Printing. Never once did I imagine that Leeds would give me grounds to be proud of having rejected it as a seat of academic learning. But today I can report that I am really, really pleased that I do not have after my name those letters denoting a joint honours degree in French and English from Leeds. While I was there, at the end of the 1970s, the Yorkshire Ripper was stalking the streets. At times, it was quite frightening. Now it appears, incredibly, that an even more serious evil could be on the loose in our world again. This I find even more terrifying than the Ripper. (Picture from this Canada Post article by Kuntzel.) Just how out of touch the university is can be witnessed by the fact that even Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain is warning Muslims that criticism of Israel must not slide over into antisemitism, as we report. His remarks, in the Jewish Chronicle, will be repeated at a JCC event on Monday night. Significantly, Inayat will invite his co-JCC panellist David Cesarani to discuss this with him on his Islam Channel show immediately beforehand. 

Purim: 'Bring Ahmadinejad to trial'

A former colleague Michael Gove is excelling himself in politics, and never more so with his Early Day Motion calling for the President of Iran to be brought to trial on the charge of 'incitement to commit genodice'. Irene Lancaster brought my attention to this on her Purim post, where she describes how one of her friends dressed as a cross between Honor Blackman in 'Pussy Galore' and someone from the cast of Cats. This picture shows Madonna as a 1920s flapper with her husband Guy Ritchie at a Kabbalah Purim party in Los Angeles. The picture below shows what she wore last year.

Gays in Nigeria and in Judaism

Mark Schoofs is reporting in the online Wall Street Journal on the plight of Nigeria's gay Christians. He tells the story of Augustus Olakunle Macaulay, who founded the Bible university that trained his son in theology. He founded the evangelical ministry that ordained his son as a minister. And he is president of Nigeria's Association of Christian Theologians, which counts his son as a member. But now Prof Macaulay supports a draconian new law that could criminalize his own son and his son's new new Christian church, and put his son behind bars. That's because the son, the Rev Rowland Jide Macaulay, has founded House of Rainbow, a church that caters to Nigeria's gay men and lesbians -- a first for Africa's most populous country. The relationship between Prof Macaulay and his son mirrors some of the conflicting forces buffeting homosexuals in Nigeria. Gay men and lesbians are becoming more visible, even as their society, which is hostile to homosexuality, threatens to become still less tolerant of them.