Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG

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.